KUWAIT CITY, Jan 30: The Misdemeanor Court has acquitted two people and decided to imprison another for swindling a Kuwaiti citizen by making the latter believe that he won a lottery through WhatsApp. The Public Prosecution had earlier charged the defendants with deceiving the victim and forcing him to hand over money by making him believe that he won the grand prize in the form of a treasure.

Case files indicate that while the victim was in an Arab country, he was defrauded by the accused and another unknown person. He received a call from an African country through WhatsApp, stating he won a treasure and asked him to transfer money to the other accused in Kuwait. When he requested a refund, another accused contacted him and asked him to accompany the accused to his residence to return the money, but he got afraid and did not go with him.

When one of the accused was interrogated, he denied the accusations and insisted that he had no relationship with the other accused. He said he received part of the amount through a call from the other accused. He then requested his relative -- an African, to get the money from the accused in Kuwait and transfer it to a person residing in Senegal whom he did not know. When asked about the benefit he got, he asserted that he merely provided the service and had no benefit from the transaction.
Attorney Bashar Al-Nassar, lawyer for one of the accused, argued that there was no material element of fraud; stressing his client did not take any action to deceive the victim into handing over the money. He added his client was not involved, emphasizing that the other accused just asked his client to receive the money from another person and transfer the amount to him. He based his final argument on his client’s lack of knowledge of the supposed fraud.