KUWAIT: A Tanzanian was arrested for forging official transactions, security and civil IDs, birth certificates and passports, said security sources, noting that the suspect had been in this illicit business for three years. He was caught with a large number of fake IDs and passports.

Interior Ministry's assistant undersecretary for criminal security Maj General Abdul Hameed Al-Awadhi announced in a statement that the 52-year-old suspect was found to hold four fake passports himself. Awadhi added that criminal investigators had been tipped off concerning the suspect's activity in forging Kuwaiti passports, IDs, bedoon IDs, driving licenses, birth certificates and various official and banking documents in a most professional and undetectable way.

Sources added that the suspects had been offering his services to wanted people to change their identities for up to KD 4,000. Awadhi said that the suspect's apartment in Salmiya was raided and that detectives found 20 fake Kuwaiti passports, over 45 fake stamps, MoI and MoH documents, a PC, photocopy machines, flash drives and various tools he used for forgery. Awadhi added that a search was in progress for people who had used the suspect's services to bring them to justice.

By Hanan Al-Saadoun