https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/kuwait/kuwaiti-jailed-fined-35m-over-fraud-and-money-laundering-1.500032054

A Kuwaiti man has been sentenced to five years in prison and fined KD1.1 million ($3.5 million) after he was convicted of fraud and money laundering, Kuwaiti media has reported.

The man was found guilty of defrauding an unspecified number of people of their money in connection to phantom projects, the specifics of which were not revealed.

In a separate case, Kuwait’s top appeals court has handed down a three-year imprisonment term with labour to a lawyer on charges of fraud and forgery.

The Court of Cassation convicted the lawyer of forging a title deed of a building in Iraq inherited by a Kuwaiti man of whom he had defrauded KD45,000. The ruling is final.

There has recently been a rise in fraud cases in Kuwait despite repeated warnings from authorities to citizens and expatriates to be on guard against potential fraudsters and their ruses, Al Qabas newspaper has quoted what it termed as a well-informed source.

Cases related to real-estate scams top the swindle list, followed by bogus investment deals inside Kuwait or abroad, and fraud linked to luxury car purchases.

Last December, the Court of Cassation sentenced seven expatriates to seven years in prison each on charges of money laundering, fraud, and embezzlement.

The top court also ordered the defendants — two Europeans and five Arabs — to be deported after serving their sentences.

The defendants were found guilty of participating in a Europe-based fraud ring. The case came to light after a Kuwaiti citizen filed a legal complaint alleging he was swindled out of KD157,000) when two of the defendants tricked him by phone into making financial transactions via electronic platforms.