Following a court decision in the Eastern Province convicting a Saudi citizen and 10 foreign workers of commercial fraud, the Ministry of Commerce published their names and details.

The Dammam Criminal Court sentenced a citizen, owner of an illegal factory, to one year in prison, while 10 Indian and Bangladeshi nationals were each sentenced to six months in prison.

The convicts were fined SR720000. Additionally, the court ordered the plant involved in the commercial fraud to be shut down and the counterfeit products confiscated and destroyed.

At an unlicensed factory on a private farm in Qatif governorate, the citizen and foreigners were convicted of manufacturing and selling adulterated tobacco products.

Owners of the plant and workers engaged in an unlicensed commercial activity, cheating and manipulating commercial data through the preparation of tobacco and molasses mixtures and packaging them with misleading commercial data to sell in local markets.

Despite the warning, the Ministry of Commerce will continue arresting violators of commercial regulations and taking legal action.

Among the penalties provided by the Anti-Commercial Fraud Law are three years in prison and fines of up to SR1 million or both, naming and shaming violators in two local newspapers at their expense, and deportation of foreign workers involved in the illegal activity.