Authorities are tightening the noose around expatriates attempting to secure employment in the Kingdom on the basis of fake degrees. In a recent incident two nurses of different nationalities were apprehended for submitting forged documents to the Ministry of Health.

An Asian nurse working in the Eastern Province for the last couple of years was discovered to have submitted forged certificates and was deported. Although she had been working for over two years, the case came to light only recently, according to sources who helped her travel home from the deportation center.

In another case an Asian nurse working in Jeddah was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for submitting a forged nursing certificate. She had been working in Jeddah for several years and had a bachelor’s degree. However, she had forged her nursing certificate in order to gain employment in the Kingdom, according to a report of the criminal court.

The nurse confessed to her crime saying she had submitted the forged documents with the help of the manpower recruitment agency to whom she had paid money.

She appealed to the court to release her as she had spent four months in prison without causing trouble. The court agreed to her request but ordered her to pay a penalty of SR1,000.

In related news, the Ministry of Health slapped SR25,000 in fines on pharmacies in Tabuk and Riyadh for failing to comply with the ministry’s rules regarding pharmacies.


In Tabuk, the ministry imposed a penalty of SR5,000 on the pharmacy for hiring an expatriate without a license to practice the profession, while in Riyadh it slapped a fine of SR20,000 for a similar offense.