Kuwait Strips Over 1,000 People of Citizenship in Massive Identity Fraud Bust
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Fatima Saif
- . July 23, 2025
- . Update: July 23, 2025 11:49 pm
Kuwaitis have been in the news when its authorities cut off the citizenship of over 1,060 persons, which government officials term as the largest citizenship fraud case in the history of Kuwait. This mega-drama in clamping down on the issue of identity fraud has surprised the entire nation, and it reflects especially the extent to which the issue of counterfeit citizenship has deep roots in Kuwait. Kuwait citizenship fraud case investigation began with a tip-off by the authorities that there were some suspicious activities. What they stumbled upon was far larger than anybody could have anticipated – whole networks of individuals who have assumed false identities and have forged documents to achieve the status of Kuwaiti Nationalhood illegitimately.
How the Kuwait Identity Fraud Network Operated
The Kuwaiti citizenship fraud entailed some intricate schemes lasting over years. It was like the fraud network was something like this:
The Story of the Main Suspect: A man, who was born in 1956, began such a massive identity fraud by posing as a Kuwaiti citizen, whereas he really had citizenship of a different Gulf country. Albeit he was exposed to the false identity as early as 2006, he still managed to remain within the record.
This man has augmented his fake profile over the years; he had 44 children and 122 additional members all belonging to the family. All these people he declared as his relations to them thus making them to be entitled to Kuwaiti citizenship as well.
DNA Tests Unmask the Truth: When Kuwait authorities decided to focus more on this case, they also resorted to DNA tests to confirm whether indeed the man could be related to all these individuals. The findings were appalling – the majority of the people he considered to be his relatives were not in any way related to him.
This was detected and resulted in the cancellation of the citizenship of more than 1,000 individuals who had obtained their nationality using this cheating network.
This massive citizenship fraud bust has important effects on Kuwait’s nationality system:
As evidenced in the case, citizenship fraud was prevalent in Kuwait than anyone could imagine. It included falsified documents, nonexistent family ties, and individuals with the illegal possession of dual nationality. The government’s reaction is so high and demonstrates that they do not want Kuwaiti citizenship to be a subject of fraud. This enquiry can result in higher probes on the current citizens and harsher regulations of new citizenship requests.
This will imply that the 1,060 individuals who have been stripped of Kuwaiti citizenship have to exit Kuwait or otherwise discover another lawful means of remaining in the kingdom. This decision also impacts their children and dependents.
