Domestic worker jailed for stealing BD778 from employer

TDT | Manama

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

The First High Criminal Court has sentenced a 39-year-old African domestic worker to one year in prison, fined her BD1,000, and ordered her permanent deportation after serving her sentence for stealing BD778 from her Bahraini employer’s bank account using the BenefitPay app.

Court records show the defendant exploited her sponsor’s hospitalization, using her employer’s PIN code to withdraw the money. During a previous hearing, she confessed to unlawfully using her employer’s electronic signature and bank-linked PIN in 2025 to access the app and seize the funds.

The victim, a woman in her sixties, discovered an unexpected BD180 transfer while checking her BenefitPay app. She handed her phone to her sister, who found four additional unauthorized transactions totaling BD778.

Investigations traced the transfers to another African woman, who admitted receiving the amounts from the defendant and later returned the last payment. A second witness confirmed that the recipient’s husband had transferred the money to the defendant’s relatives.