The crime of impersonating police officers, Hai'a staff, businessmen and important public figures, has spread lately, affecting both Saudis and expatriates, with the latter constituting the larger proportion of the victims, targeted mostly by those impersonating police officers. Those impersonating businessmen and well-known sports figures or their representatives usually target Saudis. Cases of impersonation began to appear in 1998 after the Kingdom started conducting security campaigns against criminals and residency violators. Once it was clear that the security campaigns would be held on a periodic basis, criminals began to impersonate Passports Department officials and policemen in order to exploit illegal foreigners , searching their residences and sometimes imposing ‘fines' and taking money, Al-Watan Arabic daily said. A number of police stations have received reports from Asian nationals and others about Saudis or Arabs coming to their houses and asking for residency documents. One expatriate, who had not renewed his residency permit, was ‘fined' SR100 by these imposters, which he paid immediately. In Dammam in the first half of this year, two young men carrying weapons and a ‘walkie-talkie' radio visited the houses of a number of foreign laborers and looted them after requesting to check the residents' identification papers. The imposters were apprehended shortly afterwards and confessed to several similar crimes. In Nuairiyah last week, police arrested five men after two Arab expatriates reported that the five had stopped them claiming that they were from the Passports Department. The victims said the imposters asked for their identification, grabbed them by their clothes and tried to take their money by force. The five suspects were arrested by a road security patrol when they were stopped for exceeding the speed limit. A year ago, authorities in Jouf Region arrested five Saudis who had forged documents and impersonated police officials. The five, who worked together, promised a number of women jobs in exchange for amounts of money. Last month in Dammam, the Administrative Court imposed a SR10,000 fine on a man found guilty of impersonating a Hai'a staff member. Director of Al-Amal Psychiatric Hospital in Dammam, Dr. Muhammad Al-Zahrani, said impersonators can be divided into three categories. The first two suffer from a psychiatric or personality disorder and need medical help. Those in the third category impersonate with criminal intent, he said. __
