Home Affairs and law enforcement arrested seven people involved in a suspected passport fraud syndicate. Foreign nationals operating in Durban will appear at the Durban Specialised Commercial Crimes Court today (Tuesday).

The Hawks arrested two more suspects in an ongoing passport fraud clampdown, bringing the total number of arrests to seven since the weekend. The other five suspects were from various parts of Durban and will face charges of corruption, fraud, contravention of the Immigration Act, and contravention of the Identification Act.

According to the Hawks’ Colonel Katlego Mogale, “The Serious Corruption Investigation component of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, based in Pretoria, has arrested an additional two suspects in the ongoing operation that began on June 14 in KwaZulu-Natal, bringing the number to seven.

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“The execution operation emanates from a complaint from the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) relating to the issuance of fraudulent passports to undocumented foreign nationals. The allegations reported serious offences include corruption, fraud, and contraventions of the Identification Act and Immigration Act that took place between February 2020 and July 2023, wherein a group of South African citizens allegedly facilitated the fraudulent acquisition of South African passports by foreign nationals at DHA offices in Durban, specifically the Commercial Street branch. These unlawful activities took place outside of regular business hours, including evenings, weekends and public holidays, when the DHA offices were officially closed.

“Preliminary investigations by the DHA confirmed that the criminal activities were indeed conducted on off-hours where the local citizens offered R300 to R1000 in exchange for their co-operation, especially at DHA offices in Isipingo, Durban Central and Eshowe, resulting in a case being opened for investigation by Serious Corruption Investigation.”
The Minister of Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber, reiterated, “Our strategy of clamping down on criminals, while using technology to close loopholes they exploit, is how we will ultimately win the war against corruption.”

The Hawks are not ruling out the possibility of more suspects being arrested.

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