Company files closed for selling visas

KUWAIT CITY, Aug 8: Within the framework of the government plan to clean the labor market from marginal workers and adjust the demographics, the security authorities have intensified their efforts to control visa traders who are registered with companies without offices and without any activity commercially.

Total of 450 fake companies have been referred on charges of selling visas where around 100,000 expats will have to exit Kuwait by end of 2020. Number of expats have bought visas from these companies where in reality they never worked for these companies. The files of these companies will be closed with restrictions.

While investigating 450 companies and offices, 300 have already been investigated where it was found that these companies had no commercial activity yet 100,000 workers were registered. The visas were acquired through fictions companies and visas were sold to expats.

Drastic steps are being taken as these companies had issued visas to expats and none of the expats were working for them, but the release was given by the visa traders. Applying regulations the Govt will amend demographics as well as control the companies issuing visas.

The Ministry of Interior in coordination with Residency Affairs Department have referred 535 persons including 55 Kuwait citizens to investigation authorities for their involvement in these cases. Checks for ghost companies and farms are still going on.

Many of these farms have been a gateway for visa trading. Some of the workers left as soon as they became aware that their companies and offices were referred for investigation as they will be not allowed to return back, whereas some are from countries which are currently having restrictions waiting for their flights to resume.

Around 66 million dinars were earned by these fictions companies in 2 yrs (2018-2019) and it was found that 30,000 workers were brought in from Arab and Asian countries with visa prices around KD 1500 and for some nationalities it was more. For stamping 70,000 residence 21 million dinars were earned reports Al Qabas.

Any company files reflecting that visas were sold have been currently dealt with iron fist by the Ministry of Interior and Residency Affairs Department.

Plans are underway to arrest residence violators who did not take advantage of amnesty period which was set in month of April 2020. Totally new campaigns will be launched which have never before seen. Majority of farms who are involved in this business will be targeted first.