A trio of Home Affairs officials has been arrested for manufacturing fake passports. Photo: Flickr.
Home Affairs officials ‘sell’ fake passports to foreign nationals
The trio of Home Affairs officials used the details of real South African citizens to make fake passports for foreign nationals.
A trio of Home Affairs officials has been arrested for manufacturing fake passports. Photo: Flickr.
The Hawks has swooped on a trio of home affairs officials who are facing charges of fraud and corruption for allegedly running an operation in which they processed fraudulent passports “for a fee” for foreign nationals.
Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigation Unit (Hawks) spokesperson, Captain, Simphiwe Mhlongo said that Hawks officers from the Durban Serious Corruption Investigation Unit, working together with officials from the Home Affairs Counter Corruption unit, had arrested the three officials earlier this week.
“They were allegedly receiving payments of up to R3000 per document. An internal investigation revealed that they were using details of South African citizens together with the photo of the foreign national,” Mhlongo said.
Home Affairs officials in court after passport ring exposed
He said cases of fraud and corruption had been reported to several police stations and the case dockets had then been allocated to Hawks members for further investigation.
The three home affairs officials appeared briefly in the Durban Magistrates’ Court yesterday. Shange was released on R3000 bail and the case was postponed to 11 February 2022.
Mboyana was released on a warning and his case was postponed to 31 January 2022, while Zuma was released on R6000 bail and his case was postponed to 25 February 2022.
Meanwhile in an unrelated incident, two police officers appeared in the Colenso Magistrates Court this week to face charges of stock theft, after police arrested them in a special operation, along with to other stock theft suspects.
Constable Nkosinathi Ngubane, 31, and Constable Mlungisi Mshengu, 37, were arrested after investigators, acting on a tip-off, found and recovered three stolen sheep that were being kept in a chicken pen at Mshengu’s home. Both officers are based at the Winterton Police Station.
