A private nurse who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for stealing BD25,700 from a disabled elderly patient has received an additional five-year jail term for laundering the stolen funds.
In March, the 30-year-old Indian woman was found guilty of using her 79-year-old patient’s mobile phone to transfer money from his online banking account to herself in order to settle debts in India.
Yesterday, the High Criminal Court found her guilty of laundering BD22,250 – part of the amount she had stolen – after she returned BD3,500 to the victim.
She was also fined BD100,000 and ordered to repay the BD22,250, which may be recovered from her assets and properties.
The court ordered her deportation upon completion of her sentence. The financial penalties from both trials amounted to BD127,250, including the BD5,000 fine handed down in the earlier case.
In the current proceedings, the court heard that the Indian woman laundered part of the stolen money that she was unable to repay.
Court documents stated that she transferred BD22,051 to her husband’s bank account in India through four international wire transfers. She spent the remaining funds on food, jewellery and financial trading platforms.
The case came to light when the victim’s 49-year-old son discovered that large sums of money had been withdrawn from his father’s bank account in September and October 2025.
After tracing the movement of the funds, he reportedly found that they had been transferred to the bank account of the nurse caring for his medically dependent father.
According to the son, his father had undergone a tracheotomy two years earlier – a procedure in which an opening is made in the throat to insert a tracheal tube that enables a patient to breathe without using the nose or mouth.
The nurse was paid a monthly salary of BD300 to administer the elderly Bahraini’s medications, maintain his ventilator and change his clothes.
As the defendant failed to make full restitution, the son reported the matter to the authorities.
In the first trial, the woman was found guilty of using the victim’s electronic signature – a one-time password (OTP) – for her own benefit to gain unauthorised access to his online banking account and steal the funds.
Prosecutors previously accused her of ‘exploiting the victim’s condition and lack of mobility’ to carry out the theft, as the elderly man was bedridden and had difficulty speaking following the throat surgery.
She appealed the verdict before the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court, but judges upheld it.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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