Five people including a former Department of Home Affairs official were arrested by the Hawks over the weekend in connection with a syndicate involving passport fraud at some of Home Affairs’ offices in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).
Home Affairs spokesperson Siya Qoza said a Home Affairs-led law enforcement operation, supported by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), over this past weekend, busted a syndicate involved in passport fraud at the uMngeni and Commercial Road Home Affairs offices in Durban.
Found with 226 stolen passports
Qoza said among the five people arrested are a former Home Affairs official from the Prospecton Home Affairs office. Also a municipal project volunteer at the Commercial Road Home Affairs office. And three members of the public. One of the three was found with 226 passports that were recently stolen from the uMngeni Home Affairs office.
“The successful operation was initiated by Home Affairs’ Counter-Corruption Unit following information received from the public. One of the suspects was found with keys to the Home Affairs offices on Commercial Road and at Prospecton.
“The same suspect was also found with copies of enabling documents that did not belong to him,” said Qoza.
He said all five suspects are in custody. They are scheduled to appear in the Durban Commercial Crimes Court on Tuesday.
Qoza said two further suspects have been identified as members of this syndicate. The Hawks remain on the hunt for them.
Syndicate society
“Earlier this year, Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, issued a warning. He said… at the launch of the Border Management and Immigration Anti-Corruption Forum that South Africa was increasingly becoming a “syndicate society”. And that Home Affairs was
determined to work with other law enforcement agencies to crack down on syndicates
operating in this environment.
“This operation follows the dismissal of 33 corrupt officials since July last year. Also the criminal conviction of eight offenders. [They received] sentences ranging from four to 18 years in prison,” said Qoza.
Schreiber said: “This latest [uncovered] operation lands another blow in our ongoing clean-up campaign at Home Affairs. It is specifically focused on breaking open criminal syndicates.”
New digital process
“The details of the case also reaffirms the urgent work we are doing to digitalise all of our processes. This is so that it becomes impossible for syndicates to penetrate and manipulate our systems.
“And this combination of ensuring criminals are arrested and prosecuted, and using digital transformation to close the loopholes they exploit, is how we will ultimately win the war against corruption.”
