Criminal Investigation Department raids a room in Hawalli that had been turned into a den for manufacturing forged stamps, arresting foreigners
Kuwait officials: Yesterday, officers from the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation arrested Asian expatriates who had rented a room in the Hawalli area to manufacture counterfeit stamps. The raid on the room yielded quantities of ready-to-distribute stamps, along with printing materials and equipment. A security source confirmed that investigations are ongoing with the suspects to identify their partners who were distributing these stamps to numerous patients who requested cleaning staff to affix stamps to their medical documents, due to the difficulty of moving around government hospitals.
The source suggested that investigators would likely refer the main suspects involved in manufacturing the stamps to the Public Prosecution, while merely deporting the cleaning staff implicated in the distribution.
Regarding the full details of the case, a security source stated that intelligence reached investigators about the circulation of counterfeit stamps within government health facilities. Consequently, investigators arrested one worker who exploited the presence of a patient in a wheelchair to place a fake stamp on the paperwork.
The source added that the expatriate was interrogated, during which he revealed that other expatriates supplied him with these stamps at half their face value. For instance, a stamp worth 10 dinars was sold to the worker for 5 dinars, and a stamp worth 5 dinars was sold for 2 dinars.
The source said investigators traced the expatriates’ residence to a room in the Hawalli area, leading to a raid where the Asians, along with the tools and materials used for stamp forgery, were seized.
The source noted that the suspects confessed to investigators that they were producing the stamps with a high degree of precision, and then selling them to various cleaning staff, who used them as an additional source of income.
The security source reiterated that authorities are currently compiling a list of individuals who dealt with the suspects, emphasizing that criminal security forces are on alert against anyone attempting to violate the law and safeguard state funds.
