Kuwaiti police have dismantled a gang suspected of swindling pharmacies out of personal protection equipment (PPE) and issuing them bouncy cheques, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas has reported.<\/p>\n
The offenders fraudulently obtained protective face masks, gloves and disinfectants from pharmacies with the aim of temporarily hoarding them before reselling for prohibitive prices, taking advantage of the high demand for the items amid the COVID-19 crisis, according to the report.<\/p>\n
Three suspects – a Lebanese, an Egyptian and an Indian – were arrested and the trio identified the nine other accomplices who are still at large.<\/p>\n
The case came to attention of the police after the owner of a pharmacy reported that a self-styled merchant cut a deal with him on phone to buy all his stocks of PPE and later obtained the goods in return for a cheque that was found out to be a dud, a senior security source told Al Qabas.<\/p>\n
Police investigations revealed a series of similar incidents involving the gang that had defrauded a large number of drug stores in Kuwait.<\/p>\n
Police caught three members of the ring involved in the act of receiving the goods from a pharmacy and holding bouncy cheques. In ensuing interrogations, they admitted to having committed several cases of fraud. They provided details on other suspects who are being tracked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
3 members of the 12-strong ring were caught red-handed Kuwaiti police have dismantled a gang suspected of swindling pharmacies out of personal protection equipment (PPE) and issuing them bouncy cheques, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Qabas has reported. The offenders fraudulently obtained protective face masks, gloves and disinfectants from pharmacies with the aim of temporarily hoarding them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090,2,18],"tags":[3086,3222,3032,60,3892],"class_list":["post-47846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-featured","category-local","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-fraud","tag-kuwait","tag-ppe-gang"],"yoast_head":"\n