Lerato Mbhiza
A Pakistani national – Arfan Ahmed – arrested in a sting operation that included the Counter Corruption Branch of Home Affairs, the Hawks and the Police Crime Intelligence on 24 March 2022 at the Home Affairs office in Krugersdorp, was sentenced to eight years imprisonment by the Brixton Magistrate Court on Monday .
Ahmed was identified as the kingpin of a passport syndicate that sought to undermine the country’s laws by fraudulently procuring South African passports for Pakistani nationals who did not have a legal right to possess South African passports.
Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has welcomed sentences recently meted out to two South Africans and a Pakistani national in two different cases in Durban and Johannesburg, for passport-related crimes.
Ahmed was working with some corrupt officials of Home Affairs in a network that spanned Gauteng, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Mpumalanga.
While the Pakistani is languishing in jail, the 12 corrupt Home Affairs officials who enabled his scheme have already been fired and submitted to the Hawks for criminal investigations.
Anda Ngozi and Nomathandazo Mboyanewere sentenced to 26 and 24 years, respectively by the Durban Magistrate Court. The two were officials of the Department of Home Affairs employed at the office in Queenstown, in the Eastern Cape.
They used to travel 650 km each way at a time during the night to Home Affairs offices in Commercial Road and in Prospecton in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, to fraudulently process 52 passports to foreign nationals, mostly from the DRC, who were not entitled to them.
They were paid between R3 000 and R5 000 for each passport. South Africans who were prepared to lend their identities for this nefarious scheme were paid a paltry R500.
The two were arrested in November 2022 by the Counter Corruption Branch of Home Affairs and the Hawks following the conclusion of an internal investigation led by the Counter Corruption Branch.
The sentences of the two will run concurrently, meaning that Ngozi will spend 10 years while Mboyane will spend eight years in prison.
“I am extremely pleased that the courts are meting out lengthy sentences to those who seek to undermine the integrity of Home Affairs systems. It is worth noting that the courts had refused bail to all three after their arrests.
“I am also happy the collective work of the multidisciplinary law enforcement teams has ensured that these rascals face the full might of the law for their criminal actions,” said Motsoaledi.
Motsoaledi added that he is looking forward to the sentencing of more people related to these two cases as the Hawks haven’t yet closed their investigations.
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