Fake ‘luxury’ watches gifted to Kuwait’s top oil sector workers

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Who’s the culprit, 10 years on?

KUWAIT CITY, Nov 19: Gifts of fake luxury watches in the oil sector – a topic that is being talked about – dates back to ten years ago when one of the companies affiliated with the oil sector decided to honor its former five presidents, who left their mark and achievements in the history of the company, by gifting luxury watches on the occasion of the company’s golden jubilee or the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the company, reports Al-Rai daily quoting oil sources.

They narrated the story in the following manner – “For one reason or another, it was not possible to deliver these luxurious gifts to the honorees. Hence, they were kept in the company’s financial department for years and years. With the passage of time, the State Audit Bureau discovered during the past years that these precious gifts, which were luxury watches, were still in the financial department.” When the bureau asked the concerned officials about the reason why these gifts were still there, the officials said they were honorary gifts that were not distributed for reasons related to the failure to host the scheduled ceremony.

This prompted the bureau to demand that they be handed over to those who deserve them even without any celebration. The company therefore sent these gifts with one of its officials to the homes of the former presidents and handed them over to them or their family members if the concerned person had passed away. After handing over these watches, which had been with the treasurer in the financial department for about ten years, one of the recipients wanted to do maintenance work on them. He took the watch to a specialist, only to discover that the watch was fake and not original.

These watches were collected from the honorees and examined by the specialist, who confirmed that they were all fake, despite having been purchased with official invoices ten years ago. As soon as the watches were proven to be knock-offs, the company formed an investigation committee to look into five original watches, which were bought for up to KD 10,000 at that time but turned out to be fake.

There are many questions and more details, but the truth is lost, and no one can be accused because the watches were bought from the agent with official invoices by company officials, and they were then delivered to the headquarters, which in turn handed them over to the Financial Department and placed in a safe. Over these ten years, a huge number of workers and administrators changed, which will make it difficult to monitor and prosecute, as well as determine whether the original watches may have been replaced with fake ones”.

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