Home Affairs Minister, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, has welcomed the lengthy sentence meted out to a Pakistani national for passport related crimes.
Arfan Ahmed, a Pakistani national who was 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, has been sentenced to eight years imprisonment by the Brixton Magistrate Court.
He was sentenced for the passports that were found in his house following his arrest in Krugersdorp.
“Ahmed is a 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.
“He was working with some corrupt officials of Home Affairs in a network that spanned Gauteng, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Mpumalanga,” the department stated.
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.
