Con men in Bahrain are stealing the identities of low-income expat workers and using them to run up debts, according to a foreign diplomat, Gulf Daily News reported.
Pakistan Embassy community welfare attaché Maqsood Shah said it had received more than 100 cases in the past four months, most involving poor and illiterate expats who were exploited by people claiming to help them.
He said the unsuspecting victims only found out when they were prevented from leaving the country because of money owed in their names.
“The cases that we receive are more or less similar in nature – the men are poor, needy and illiterate,” he was quoted as saying.
“They are lured by the promise of better jobs in return for their CPR [Central Population Registry] cards, but these CPRs are then used to purchase high-end phones and make long-term business deals with telecom companies.”
Shah said the CPR cards were returned to their owners with the promise of a new job, but it is not until months or years later when the men reached the airport to go for a holiday that they realised they were trapped.
“One man who approached us just days ago is a labourer, who earns a meagre BD30 per month, but the case against him is that he owes money for a gadget worth BD120,” he told the newspaper.
Shah said the embassy had written to Bahrain’s Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowment Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ali Al Khalifa calling for the travel ban policy to be overhauled.
The Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society in February estimated that more than 3,000 expats were unable to leave the country due to travel bans, which are mainly imposed on those who owe money.
Many of those affected are unable to get work since their residency permits are not renewed, compounding the situation.
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