Criminal Court: 7-Year Prison Sentence for Kuwaiti National and Indian Partner in Subsidized Diesel Smuggling Case
The Criminal Court sentenced a Kuwaiti national and his Indian partner to 7 years in prison for smuggling subsidized diesel.
Translated by Qiyas from السياسة — Original source
A criminal court sentenced a Kuwaiti national employed by the Kuwait Municipality and his Indian partner to seven years in prison each in a case involving the smuggling of subsidized diesel out of the country. The court also sentenced four Indian defendants to one month in prison each, while acquitting a customs inspector, an internal affairs sergeant, and an Egyptian marketing manager of the charges against them.
The Public Prosecution had charged the defendants with conspiring to forge customs documents and official records, smuggling subsidized diesel, and re-exporting and selling it abroad by submitting false declarations regarding the nature of the shipments, and by preparing and filling containers with petroleum products in preparation for export.
According to case documents, the charges included preparing containers and filling them with diesel, forging customs data and exit permits, with the aim of passing the shipments through customs checkpoints and illegally removing them from the country.
The Ministry of Interior had previously announced the dismantling of an organized network smuggling petroleum products, in a joint operation involving the General Directorate of Criminal Investigations, represented by the Anti-Money Laundering Department and the Maritime Border Investigations Department, as well as the General Directorate of Customs.
The network was uncovered after intelligence reports indicated that 10 containers were being prepared for export as iron shipments, before it was revealed that they contained petroleum products, distributed across two customs declarations belonging to two trading companies.
Investigations showed that the shipments belonged to the Kuwaiti national working for the Municipality and his partner, and that the petroleum products were collected in the Kabd area inside containers and flexible tanks, in preparation for shipping them abroad using forged customs documents.
A raid on the site yielded a container preparation and petroleum storage facility, and led to the arrest of several defendants who confessed to the smuggling offenses. They stated that the main suspect had been running the operation for about eight months, at a rate of two shipments per month.
Investigations also revealed the use of an agricultural plot in the Kabd area for collecting and storing petroleum products, after it was rented and divided among industrial and construction companies in violation of its designated purpose.
