JEDDAH, 28 August — Saudi authorities raided a limousine company suspected of employing 80 illegal Asian drivers and confiscated 77 forged iqamas, five forged passports and five forged licenses, an informed source told Arab News.
Officers of the Passport Department’s anti-forgery wing raided the company after monitoring its activities and workers for one month. They arrested 10 drivers of the company for holding forged iqamas and directed the traffic police to round up the remaining drivers.
The source said that one expatriate worker at the company tried to hide the forged iqamas under his clothes at the time of the raid. The officers also confiscated 20 iqamas of drivers who had absconded from their sponsors.
The operation comes less than a month after security officers raided another limousine company in central Jeddah for allegedly employing 120 Asian drivers with forged iqamas and driving licenses.
During that raid, police found 112 drivers were carrying forged iqamas, 12 forged passports and 15 forged driving licenses. Police also confiscated a bag containing official documents and forged passports.
Preliminary investigation proved that the company had taken away the iqamas from the drivers six months ago and given them stamped letters to mislead security officers.
According to the source, the expatriate manager of the company involved in the latest scandal employed illegal drivers as most of them had absconded from their original sponsors. The company had given the drivers letters saying the iqamas had been withdrawn from them to complete procedures related to transfer of sponsorship.
Col. Mohsen Al-Adwani, director of anti-forgery wing at the Passport Department in Makkah region, told Arab News that most of the company’s drivers were carrying forged iqamas. "When we verified the iqama numbers through the department’s computer system we found they were forged," he added.
Investigators also found that the company’s expatriate manager was earlier involved in iqama forgery. He used to collect SR10 from each driver daily for himself.
