Salama District Police are holding two Saudi nationals and a Sudanese expatriate who posed as municipality supervisors, inspected shops, held workers, told them that their ID documents were not in order and demanded bribes, officials said. The men asked workers to pay large amounts of money in return for overlooking the violations, releasing the workers and returning their identification papers, but a Bangladeshi worker was suspicious and reported them, according to officials. In most cases, they returned the IDs after collecting money, officials added. Al-Salama Police under its Commander, Lt. Col. Hashim Al-Jihani, collected the information and formed a surveillance and pursuit team, which monitored places frequented by the three-man gang, officials said. After 72 hours, the police noticed the three getting out of a car and entering a shop early in the morning, in addition to inspecting a restaurant and holding workers, authorities said. An undercover agent in civilian clothes entered the establishment to ask what was going on; one of the men said he was a municipality employee and that he had strict directives to close down the violating restaurants, according to authorities. He told the undercover agent to leave or face punishment for obstructing the work of a public servant, authorities said. A security force stormed the location and the three men tried to escape but they were arrested on the spot, police said. They admitted the charges against them and were taken into custody pending completion of procedures, police added.
