Home Affairs official arrested among suspects in marriage fraud bust
KZN police uncovered a Home Affairs office in Greyville where South African women were reportedly unlawfully married to foreign nationals.
Three suspects, including a Home Affairs employee, are set to appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, October 30, for allegedly conducting marriages between South African women and foreign nationals at a secret office in Greyville, Durban.
The suspects were arrested at their office in Greyville, Durban, on Monday, 28 October, following an intelligence-driven operation.
POLICE DISCOVER HOME AFFAIRS OFFICE IN GREYVILLE
South African Police Service (SAPS) spokesperson in KwaZulu-Natal Colonel Robert Netshiunda said the suspects would get hold of identity documents of South African women and marry them to strangers, especially undocumented foreign nationals so that the fake husbands would attain South African citizenship.
Netshiunda said preliminary investigations have thus far identified a Home Affairs official who has been working in cahoots with the suspects and more arrests cannot be ruled out as investigations unfold.
“Several application forms, copies of identity documents and electronic devices were seized. Of the three suspects, two men will be charged with fraud and the woman will face a charge of defeating the ends of justice after she attempted to conceal evidence by tearing some of the documents and threw them inside a bin. The suspects are expected to appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, 30 October 2024,” Netshiunda explained.
OFFICIAL SUSPENDED
In 2023, a Home Affairs immigration officer who appeared on Moja Love’s drug-busting show ‘Sizokthola’ for allegedly working with drug dealers was suspended.
In the episode, the immigration officer was found with screenshots of official Home Affairs documents in her phone and admitted that she is not allowed to have them. When questioned about it, she said she was checking if papers for her husband’s friend were ready.
The woman was also found with multiple IDs, including two belonging to her, two belonging to her daughters, two of her husband, and one belonging to the woman who is currently married to her husband.