Pakistan civil servant 'caught on CCTV stealing wallet from visiting foreign delegation'

CCTV footage showed the man take the wallet off a table and put it in his pocket.

A senior Pakistani civil servant sparked an embarrassing diplomatic incident when he was allegedly caught on CCTV stealing the wallet of a visiting Kuwaiti delegate.

The Kuwaitis made a complaint to Pakistani officials during a mission to discuss investment plans when one visitor said his wallet had gone missing during the meeting.

Officials searched the Economic Affairs Division of the finance ministry and frisked employees in the hunt for the wallet, Dawn, a leading Pakistani newspaper reported.

It was only when CCTV in the meeting hall was checked that a senior bureaucrat with the Pakistan Administrative Services was seen taking the wallet. A six-second clip said to show the incident was widely shared on social media. The clip showed a man taking a wallet from a conference table and putting it in his pocket.

The official reportedly denied involvement until he was confronted with the video and then produced the missing wallet.

Pakistani officials at first refused to tell their guests who the culprit was, until the furious Kuwaitis insisted and were shown the film.

When asked about the wallet stealing incident, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said that most of the present bureaucrats had got “moral training” during the previous governments...

— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) September 30, 2018

Sources in the ministry told the paper an internal inquiry was now underway against the bureaucrat and further action would be taken according to its conclusions.

Pakistan's new prime minister, Imran Khan, has long pledged to clean up government and has for years railed against the graft and corruption among senior politicians and officials.

When questioned about the incident, Fawad Chaudhry, information minister, told a press conference that most of the civil service had their "moral training" during the previous governments.