KUWAIT: The interior ministry announced that the general department of residency affairs investigations has dismantled a major network involved in trafficking residency permits through fraudulent company licenses and illegal recruitment of foreign workers.
According to the ministry, the group exploited the licenses of 28 companies to bring in 382 workers, charging each worker between KD 800 and KD 1,000. Investigations further revealed that bribes ranging from KD 200 to KD 250 per worker were paid to employees at the Public Authority of Manpower (PAM) in order to manipulate labor demand estimates and enter workers’ data into the system.
Among those arrested were company owners, managers and intermediaries, as well as PAM officials who accepted bribes and abused their positions. Mohammed Salem Al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti company owner, was accused of bringing workers into the country under his firms and paying bribes with the help of intermediaries. Yasser Lotfi, an Egyptian company representative, was found to have facilitated the recruitment of workers in exchange for money, while Noureldin Mansour Abdel-Aal, an Egyptian typist, was accused of coordinating payments to manpower officials and tampering with quota estimates.
Mohammed Said Noufal, an Egyptian/Palestinian intermediary, allegedly acted as the link between companies and manpower employees, transferring bribes through bank deposits and cash payments in return for a commission. Meanwhile, two Kuwaiti officials – Talal Mohammed Al-Dousari, head of labor demand estimates at the Capital governorate and Eissa Abdullah Al-Rashidi, acting director of Hawally labor department and monitoring manager – were accused of manipulating labor quotas, processing fraudulent transactions and sharing system passwords to conceal their activities.
The companies implicated in the case span multiple sectors, including contracting, design, food supply, logistics and cleaning services. The case has been registered under charges of bribery, forgery and selling residency permits. All suspects have been referred to the competent authorities.
