Two money-laundering and unlicensed banking networks sentenced to 10 years in prison, with million-dollar fines
The Court of Appeal’s State Security Division, presided over by Advisor Abdullah Al-Sanea and with the participation of Advisors Mohammed Jaafar and Saud Al-Mutairi, issued several rulings in cases involving money laundering, appeals against the rights of His Highness the Amir, and affiliation with ISIS.
In the first case, the court upheld the 10-year prison sentences for 21 defendants—comprising Kuwaiti nationals, as well as Yemeni, Syrian, and Egyptian citizens—in a money laundering case involving unlicensed banking activities through 17 commercial companies and the forgery of banking documents. The defendants were fined 202 million Kuwaiti dinars, equivalent to double the illicit funds involved in the crime, and the companies were fined 101 million Kuwaiti dinars, representing the value of the illicit funds, following investigations by the State Security Apparatus and the Financial Investigations Unit.
The prosecution accused the defendants of forming a terrorist group and laundering more than 101 million dinars obtained from crimes harming the country’s national interests, forging banking documents, establishing shell companies to collect expatriates’ salaries in Kuwait, and transferring them to Syria. They were also accused of conducting unlicensed banking activities and laundering illicit funds through goods imported from China, subsequently transferring the money back to the companies’ accounts.
In the second case, the court upheld the 10-year prison sentences for one Kuwaiti national and two Egyptians, fining them 199.588 million dinars and imposing fines of 99 million dinars on commercial entities (representing the value of the money laundering funds). The court also permanently banned them from engaging in commercial activities. However, it acquitted one Kuwaiti national and two Egyptians who had been accused of conducting unlicensed foreign currency trading for expatriates’ salaries in Kuwait and transferring them to others in Egypt by depositing the funds into company accounts under the guise of legitimate revenues and profits, thereby harming the country’s national interests. The defendants were apprehended following investigations and an ambush operation conducted by the General Directorate for Combating Terrorism and Money Laundering, in cooperation with the Criminal Execution Investigations Department.
Precise security investigations, along with tracking the flow of funds, revealed the defendants’ involvement in multiple criminal offenses through coordination with several traders in various friendly and sister countries. This resulted in damage to the financial and economic systems, as well as undermining trust in the banking systems of those countries and Kuwait.
The court upheld the three-year prison sentence for tweeter Nasser Al-Munif for publicly appealing against the rights of His Highness the Amir, insulting members of the judiciary, and compromising their integrity and impartiality. It also acquitted him of charges related to insulting Egypt.
Furthermore, the court upheld the 10-year prison sentence for a Kuwaiti national who joined ISIS, propagated the group’s terrorist and takfiri ideologies on social media platforms, received training on manufacturing explosives via Telegram, and attempted to procure a suicide vest to carry out a terrorist attack against Shia Muslims in Kuwait. He was also charged with publicly appealing against the rights of His Highness the Amir and insulting the Amir’s person.
State Security Apparatus investigations indicated that the defendant pledged allegiance to ISIS leadership and received instructions to carry out terrorist attacks against Shia Muslims. However, he failed to execute the plot after his arrest. During interrogations, he confessed to adopting the terrorist ideology and supporting bombings targeting Shia Muslims and Shia places of worship.
