KUWAIT CITY, Aug 27: Some stories are so bizarre, they defy the imagination. Even the most seasoned novelist could not dream up a tale as twisted as the one investigators unearthed in a single Kuwaiti nationality file a file that became a breeding ground for one of the most audacious citizenship frauds in the nation’s history.

At the center of this scandal is an elderly Kuwaiti father who officially had 33 children under his name. Sixteen were his flesh and blood. The other 17 were fakes—added for cash, sold like merchandise, and smuggled into the very heart of Kuwait’s identity.

What began as 17 fabricated names quickly snowballed into chaos. These forgers, armed with forged lineage, brazenly attached dozens more family members, until the false affiliations exploded into nearly 1,000 individuals, all of them illegal citizens siphoning the rights, wealth, and privileges of Kuwaitis.

The father himself admitted it years ago: “Sixteen of them are my children… and the rest are not.” His words were a chilling confession of a man who sold not just his conscience, but his country, in exchange for money.

Back in 2016, the Supreme Nationality Committee revoked the citizenship of 13 forgers, including two Syrians. DNA tests left no doubt—only 16 children were real. Despite parliamentary pressure to halt the process, the elderly father was summoned, tested, and forced to face the truth. His DNA was archived as living evidence of betrayal.

The investigations did not stop. From January to August this year, 11 more fraudsters were stripped of their citizenship, while four cases remain under review. The 17 fakes, investigators found, included 15 Gulf nationals and two Syrians, all of whom unleashed a tidal wave of false affiliations.

One forger was linked to 222 people, another to 142, and a third to 132, swelling the fraudulent tally to 926 individuals already stripped of their nationality. The last four under investigation could push that figure to nearly 1,000—an entire fabricated population spun from one man’s corrupted file.

Authorities confirmed that every revocation was backed by irrefutable DNA evidence and official documents that exposed the fraud in black and white. For Kuwait, this was more than a case of forgery—it was a stark reminder of how fragile national identity can become when loyalty is traded for money.

And so, a single father’s betrayal metastasized into a thousand fraudulent citizens—a scandal stranger than fiction, but tragically, a very real wound to Kuwait’s national fabric.