JEDDAH, 24 June 2007 — A team of Passport Department officials and police recently arrested a number of Yemenis who had secured jobs as security guards using false identification documents usually handed to Saudi tribesmen on the Saudi-Yemeni border.
According to officials, the men had been employed as security guards through friends who had secured similar jobs before. Following a tip-off, police raided locations in Jeddah’s Al-Ammariah and Al-Sahifa districts and arrested the men.
Arab News witnessed the raids. Most of those arrested said middlemen helped them cross the border into the Kingdom. One man said he had only been in the Kingdom for three months and had come here to earn money to send to his poverty-stricken family in Yemen.
In the past few months, authorities in Jeddah have arrested a number of Yemeni nationals working as security guards using fake identification documents. On May 22, Arab News reported that 18 men were arrested working for a Jeddah-based security company operating in one of the city’s biggest hospitals.
Companies are known to employ people with fake IDs in order to pay them less. Saudis employed as security guards receive around SR1,500 a month, while guards with fake identification cards are paid SR800.
Holders of ID documents handed to tribesmen are given priority over other foreigners in jobs and are also eligible to do jobs that only Saudis can be employed in. The authorities have sent a strict message to companies found to be hiring such employees and threatened them with hefty fines and jail time.
