TAIF, 15 October 2007 — Police arrested a group comprised of two Arab families in a car with a UAE license plate who were allegedly panhandling pilgrims with a sob story about being stranded on the Taif-Riyadh highway, the daily Al-Riyadh reported yesterday.
The police responded to tip-offs from several callers over a number of days who were complaining about this group aggressively panhandling travelers at a roadside rest stop.
Police say the group was camped out in a nearby rest stop and were arrested in possession of about SR5,000.
The arrest took place on Saturday, but the newspaper report didn’t say how many people were detained and if any of them were youngsters. The two families will be deported after processing at the Passport Department.
In another development, the residents of the northern border city of Arar are complaining about a noticeable presence of beggars in town recently, according to Al-Riyadh.
Most of the beggars are disabled women and children.
“The phenomenon is recent in this city, which used to be free from beggars,” the daily quoted local resident Muhammad Al-Ayyash as saying.
