SAPS
Home Affairs Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, has announced the arrest of dozens of people, including the alleged kingpin behind a massive passport fraud scam.
He said 13 foreign nationals and 13 South Africans, including Home Affairs officials, were arrested on Thursday night.
The Minister said they were allegedly doing a so-called “photo swap” or using the details of a South African national to apply for a passport, and then interfering with the system to insert a picture of a foreign national on the document.
Motsoaledi said the alleged kingpin was working with some corrupt officials in a network that spanned Gauteng, Eastern Cape, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, and Mpumalanga.
“We identified the kingpin after an alert immigration officer picked up anomalies with two passports of people who wanted to leave the country via the Cape Town International Airport. That official handed over the two people and their passports to the police,” he said.
The Minister said SAPS worked with the Department’s counter-corruption Branch on the operation.
Motsoaledi said the alleged kingpin would recruit foreign nationals, mostly Pakistanis, who wanted to acquire South African passports.
He said once he has a certain number, he would then task his runners to recruit South Africans who had never acquired passports before, and once the number of foreign nationals and South Africans match, he would then activate his lieutenants to secure a Home Affairs office from where they would conduct their treasonous act.
“Once inside the office, one of the lieutenants would authenticate the applications using his fingerprints. The other lieutenant would then process those applications in the system, the Minister said.
He said it is alleged that South Africans were recruited for as little as R500 and offered jobs that never materialised.
“The lieutenants are said to have pocketed between R5 000 and R10 000 per passport while the kingpin allegedly charged anything from R40 000 a passport to any foreign national who wanted to acquire passports they don’t qualify for.”
The arrested suspects are due to appear in court soon.
