KUWAIT CITY, July 25: A massive citizenship fraud scheme spanning three generations has been dramatically exposed in Kuwait following the arrest of a major drug trafficker caught red-handed with one million Captagon pills. What began as a drug bust has now turned into one of the country’s largest cases of identity forgery, with 87 individuals stripped of their Kuwaiti nationality.

The elaborate scam came to light after authorities apprehended Zaid bin Fulan bin Allan, a suspected drug dealer, who was found in possession of Gulf identity documents under a different name. The investigation, carried out by Kuwait’s Anti-Narcotics Department in collaboration with the Nationality Investigations Department, revealed that Zaid had purchased Kuwaiti citizenship for 15,000 dinars from a man with no real connection to him.

As the probe deepened, investigators discovered that Zaid was not the biological son of the man listed on his Kuwaiti papers. That man—whose name is being withheld for legal reasons—eventually admitted during interrogation that the two were strangers. The trail led back to 1994, when both the man and his father, Allan, were arrested by the Salmiya Investigations Department for possessing forged Gulf identity documents. However, no decision was made in the case for nearly a decade.

In 2002, the Council of Ministers finally revoked their citizenship. But just a year later, the duo successfully lobbied (via National Assembly MPs and political pressure) to have it reinstated in 2005. This restoration, it turns out, laid the foundation for a web of forgeries that would mushroom over the next two decades.

Official records uncovered by the Supreme Nationality Committee show that both the father and grandfather used completely different names on their Gulf and Kuwaiti ID cards. Old confession records from 1994 were recovered and re-examined during a high-level meeting held last Thursday, confirming that both men had knowingly obtained Kuwaiti nationality through fraudulent means.

The investigation also exposed an even more tangled deception: one of the men had added an Iraqi woman to his family file under a fake Kuwaiti name, “Noura,” when her real name was “Amal.” Amal later claimed her son as her brother, registering him as the child of Allan, effectively granting him Kuwaiti citizenship as well.

This intricate web of fake birth certificates, forged identities, and fraudulent affiliations led to a staggering 87 people being linked to the forged lineage, all of whom have now lost their citizenship.

As of now, the main drug dealer remains behind bars, the man who initially sold the citizenship is deceased, and Allan (the grandfather at the heart of the scheme) is currently imprisoned on separate forgery charges.

Authorities have described the case as a textbook example of “hereditary structural forgery”—a sophisticated, long-running scam that falsely embedded three generations into Kuwaiti society through falsified documents and political maneuvering. The investigation is ongoing, with officials vowing to crack down on all similar cases buried in the nation’s files.