Died in 1977 at the age of two... and still 'alive'!

- Death certificate and burial permit led “Citizenship Investigations” to uncover the truth

- Investigations yielded detailed data on the death certificate, burial permit, and burial location

- Civil registry data revealed a shared residential address between the identity impersonator and a Gulf national

- DNA profiling confirmed that the two individuals sharing the address were Gulf national brothers

- The forger admitted the accuracy of the information and confessed to assuming a Kuwaiti identity

- The impersonator served in the National Guard until retirement... and listed nine children in his file

- The child’s biological brothers admitted that the father of the Gulf national impersonator was a friend of their father

- The deceased father registered his Gulf friend’s son in his file, replacing the name of his own child who had died in infancy

- The father obtained the death certificate and burial permit but did not secure an official death certificate for his son

- He submitted a birth certificate for his son to the Civil Information Department but did not report his son’s death in infancy

- Manual registration and the absence of inter-system data linkage allowed the identity fraud to persist

Officers from the Citizenship Investigations Department successfully unraveled the complexities of one of the oldest identity fraud cases, dating back approximately 50 years. The case involves a Gulf national who assumed the identity of a Kuwaiti child who died in 1977 at the age of about two and a half years, beginning his impersonation in 1987.

Armed with this information, investigators launched an extensive search and inquiry to uncover the true identity of the name’s rightful owner, identify the actual person using it, locate his relatives, and establish his connection to them.

The first question facing investigators was: How could they prove that the legitimate Kuwaiti name belonged to someone who died decades ago, at a time when no interconnected state databases existed?

Based on the information regarding the death of the name’s true owner, Citizenship Investigations officers conducted a long and meticulous search through mortality records at the Ministry of Health, eventually locating the death certificate and its accompanying data, names, and dates.

The investigation did not stop at the Ministry of Health’s records. Investigators moved on to burial permits archived in Kuwait Municipality records and documents, specifically within the Funeral Affairs Department, where they traced the deceased child’s data and burial procedures.

These search efforts led to the identification of the burial site of the Kuwaiti child, allowing Citizenship Investigations to conclusively confirm that the name used by the suspect indeed belonged to a person who died as a child in 1977.

Investigators reviewed the civil ID and civil registry data, extracting the residential addresses the impersonator had moved between, along with data on individuals who had shared those same addresses.

The review revealed that the first address registered in the civil registry under the name of the person holding the Kuwaiti identity was also registered under a Gulf national, indicating that both individuals had shared the same residence at some point.

A photo of the person registered at the same residential address was obtained. Through data and photo matching, as well as further inquiries, it was determined that he was the brother of the impersonator of Kuwaiti citizenship.

After completing verification processes and matching data and photos, Citizenship Investigations officers obtained authorization from the Public Prosecution and apprehended the individual impersonating the deceased Kuwaiti child. When confronted with the evidence, data, photos, and documents gathered by investigators, he admitted the accuracy of the information and confessed to assuming a Kuwaiti identity.

Based on the confession and investigation results, the Gulf national residing in Kuwait—who had previously lived with the impersonator at the same address during a certain period—was also apprehended. DNA profiling was conducted on both individuals, and the results confirmed that the Gulf national and the Kuwaiti identity impersonator were brothers.

According to the findings of the investigations and information gathered by the Nationality Department, the impostor served in the National Guard until his retirement and has nine children registered in his file.

The suspect was referred to the Public Prosecution to take the necessary legal measures against him and to safeguard the state’s rights, which had been usurped over many years, including benefits and privileges that were improperly obtained.

Investigations and inquiries revealed the factors that enabled the impostor to use the name of the deceased child for years and decades, as well as how a person’s death went unreported to state institutions and official records.

It emerged that the child’s death occurred during a period when the civil ID system had not yet been implemented in Kuwait, and there was no information-sharing linkage between government entities and institutions.

Under the administrative procedures then in place, a death notice was issued by the hospital, followed by a burial permit from the Ministry of Health to the Municipality’s Funeral Services Department. After completing burial procedures, the concerned party—in this case, the father of the deceased—was expected to visit the Births and Deaths Department at the Ministry of Health to finalize the procedures and obtain a death certificate for his son.

When the civil ID system was introduced, registration relied on information provided by heads of households, accompanied by birth certificates, death certificates, and supporting documents.

In this case, the father submitted his deceased son’s birth certificate as part of the family file but did not provide a death certificate. Given the lack of information-sharing between government institutions at the time, the father was able to register his Gulf friend’s son in his family file under the name of his deceased child, thereby enabling him to assume a Kuwaiti identity.