A criminal court sentenced an expatriate to three years in prison with hard labor, followed by deportation, for his role in electronically stealing KD 13,500 from a Kuwaiti woman’s bank account through a fraudulent scheme. The court convicted the defendant after determining that he participated in a scam involving the impersonation of a government official.

According to the court proceedings, the victim received a phone call from an individual claiming to be an employee of the Consumer Protection Department at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The caller told the woman the call was related to a previously filed complaint and instructed her to download the remote-access software AnyDesk and enter her bank account details. Soon after, unauthorized withdrawals were made from her Commercial Bank account.

Investigations revealed that the stolen funds were initially transferred into the first defendant’s bank account and were subsequently moved in full to the account of a second defendant on the same day. The court based its ruling on the victim’s testimony, police investigation reports, bank documentation, and the timing and flow of the fund transfers. The evidence indicated that the first defendant’s account was used to receive and transfer the stolen money, implicating him directly in the theft.

The first defendant was sentenced to serve three years in prison with hard labor immediately and was ordered to be deported after completing his sentence. The court also ordered the confiscation of forged documents used in the scheme. The second defendant was acquitted of all charges.

The victim’s legal counsel, lawyer Abdulmohsen Al-Qattan, who filed the criminal complaint, also submitted a civil claim seeking provisional compensation of KD 5,001 to cover the damages resulting from the theft. The court referred the civil claim to a competent court for separate consideration, stating that addressing the compensation request requires further investigation and could delay the conclusion of the criminal case.