Three border customs officers were found guilty of stealing clothes from a shipment of apparel arriving from Kuwait, and were sentenced to three years in prison.
The Bahraini civil servants, who took 14 pieces of clothing, including shirts and trousers, were also fined BD500 each by the High Criminal Court.
“The defendants stole clothes owned by a fashion company, which were found in their possession during and due to their job,” read the verdict.
“They had searched a shipment arriving from Kuwait via the King Fahad Causeway, pretending to check if the cargo matched its customs declaration, but took clothes for themselves from the shipment.”
A cleaner at the border recounted seeing the officers measure the clothes and compare their sizes to their bodies, before asking him to hide their loot in a plastic bag belonging to a popular local supermarket.
The head of the border’s Search and Seizure Division was tipped off about the theft, and began looking into the matter.
“I received a video from a secret source of the second and third defendants opening the cargo and taking pieces of apparel from it, with the knowledge of the first defendant,” the Bahraini said.
“The second and third defendants took the clothes, measured them on themselves, chose what fits, and gave it to the worker to hide in the kitchen. The bag was found in the first defendant’s car.
“When questioned about it, he initially said that they were dirty clothes, but then confessed that the clothes didn’t belong to him.”
According to court documents, five t-shirts, five button-ups, and four pairs of pants, worth a total of BD97, were stolen.
They were made by a Kuwaiti streetwear brand, which sells men’s clothing, and comes out with original collections.
The owner of the store in Bahrain – the importer – along with the store’s manager and a Kuwait-based partner in the brand, testified to the Public Prosecution about the incident.
The Indian businessman, who owns 99 per cent of the store’s shares, explained that the shipment consisted of 45 boxes of clothing and textiles, weighing 1,865kg in total, and was shipped through an intermediary trading centre in Kuwait.
He testified that the order was placed on June 21, 2025, with a customs declaration created on July 2, arriving via the causeway the next day, and finally making it to the store on July 5.
A Bangladeshi store manager reported that several cardboard boxes had arrived ‘opened and damaged’, noting that the shop typically does not verify orders or conduct inventory checks.
Records on commercial registration (CR) portal, Sijilat, indicate that the business is ‘under liquidation’, which the owner himself appears to have filed for.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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