RIYADH, 29 May 2003 — Dozens of foreign workers roam the streets and neighborhoods of the capital with forged iqamas. They paid money to offices advertising iqama services and claiming to be authorized to deal with the Passports Department. After discovering that there was something wrong with the documents, they returned to find the offices closed and the owners gone without a trace.
Without valid iqamas, these people cannot travel between cities and cannot apply for other jobs. They face imprisonment if they try to leave the country. Their plight continues with the knowledge of staff in the Passports Department and despite directives from the Riyadh Governorate to find a solution to their problem, Al-Watan reported.
The newspaper spoke to victims of the scam in front of the Passports Department. Muhammad Ahmad, an Indian worker, said that he learned that he was a victim of these public service offices when Passports Department officers arrested him at the airport as he was returning home to see his wife and children.
Muhammad said he was shocked to learn from officials that his iqama contained falsified entries regarding transfer of sponsorship and his job. The office had told him that, for a fee, it would coordinate with the Passports Department after he had filled out the necessary paper work. “I was lucky to have kept an invoice from the bogus office which was running under the name of Al-Mahawi Office for Public Services,” he said. “If I hadn’t kept the receipt which proved my innocence, I would be behind bars now, charged with forging my iqama,” he added.
Muhammad said Passports Department officials let him go and asked him to fix the problem in his iqama. He told the daily that he and other victims of such scams waited in vain for long hours in front of the Passports Department to find a solution to their problem.
Muhammad showed the Al-Watan reporter a document from the Riyadh Governorate asking the Passports Department to find a quick solution to his problem. The document was issued by the governorate eight months ago, but nothing has been done about the man’s case. The man still cannot travel to other cities in the Kingdom and cannot even return home.
Hakeem Qandeel, an Indian national, and Muhammad Habeebur Rahman, a Pakistani, share the same predicament. They went to an office called Khaled’s Office for Public Services, adjacent to the Riyadh Passports Department, and handed them their passports. They said that since they discovered that the office forged their iqamas they faced numerous problems such as the ban on traveling to Makkah to perform Haj or Umrah. They are unable to apply for a job. Every day, the Passports Department told them to come back later as the owners of the bogus offices had not been found.
Al-Watan went to the Passports Department to ask officials there why despite the directive from the governorate nothing had been done. The newspaper also asked the officials about the legal situation of the foreigners who had been lured into the scam. However, despite repeated attempts, officials at the department refused to answer the newspaper’s questions.
