TWELVE people, including an expatriate businesswoman, have been sentenced to jail for producing dodgy visa documents in exchange for payments of thousands of dinars.
All the defendants were found guilty of bribery and forgery by the High Criminal Court yesterday.
The dirty dozen included three Bahraini employees – aged 39, 24, and 23 – at the Exits, Search and Follow-up Directorate, a 42-year-old retired Bahraini man, two 42-year-old Indian businessmen, a 47-year-old Indian businesswoman, a 31-year-old Indian cashier, a 46-year-old Indian manager, a 34-year-old Pakistani labourer, a 57-year-old Bahraini driver ... and a Bahraini accountant, aged 33, who is at large.
Two Bahrainis were jailed for seven years each and fined BD7,940, while three other Bahrainis were sentenced to five years behind bars each and fined BD2,685.
The Bahraini accountant was jailed for two years in absentia.
Four Indians, including the businesswoman, were sentenced to three years each in jail.
A Pakistani and Indian were each jailed for three years each.
The GDN previously reported that the defendants were arrested after prosecutors received a notification from the Nationality, Passports and Residence Affairs over a possible visa fraud.
The Exits, Search and Follow-up Directorate employees allowed Bahrain visit-visa holders to travel into and out of Saudi Arabia, via the King Fahad Causeway, without a valid Saudi visa. They also renewed expired visas of tourists by altering data in a government portal, which enabled travellers to have their visas renewed without leaving the country on a stipulated date.
The Public Prosecution earlier said that the three Bahraini employees, along with drivers and owners of clearance offices, accepted bribes to renew the visas.
The court previously heard that the 39-year-old Bahraini employee received BD2,685.500 through 94 BenefitPay transactions while his 23-year-old Bahraini accomplice received BD5,340 through 46 transactions.
The expatriate defendants will be deported after completing their sentences.
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