Former Home Affairs officials arrested for issuing fraudulent passports to non-nationals

Polity Audio Articles · Oct 12, 2026 · 1m

Former Home Affairs officials arrested for issuing fraudulent passports to non-nationals

Two former Home Affairs officials have been arrested for fraudulently issuing South African passports to foreign nationals for up to R100 000 each.

In a statement issued on Monday, the department said the syndicate exploited weaknesses in the manual passport process for "photo swapping".

"The arrests follow a joint investigation by the Department's own Counter Corruption Unit and the Hawks into a syndicate uncovered in 2022, which exploited a loophole known as "photo swapping", where the identity details…