Police seized hundreds of documents and equipment used for forgery; she faces fraud and forgery charges in court.
• A 25-year-old woman was arrested in Johannesburg for running a fake Home Affairs operation, producing passports, IDs, and visas from her rented flat.
Police have arrested a woman suspected of running a fully functioning Department of Home Affairs from a rented flat in Berea, Johannesburg.
The 25-year-old woman was found in possession of hundreds of passports from different countries, South African birth certificates, ID cards and green books, work permits, visas and travel documents.
Police also discovered hard drives, computers, scanners, printers, and other machines used to manufacture the illegal documents.
The South African-born woman of Congolese descent was arrested on Tuesday afternoon after police received a tip-off about dodgy dealings at a residential flat.
The operation was conducted by SAPS and Gauteng Traffic Police officers. When police arrived at the flat, the suspect was busy on the system making more documents.
A source close to the case told Scrolla.Africa that when police stormed the flat, she tried to destroy some of the documents, but it was too late.
Officers found passports from different countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), different visa permits, passport hologram plastic, and many other documents.
The woman, born in South Africa to parents from the DRC, was arrested on the spot and detained at Hillbrow police station.
She will appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court soon to face fraud and forgery charges.
This is not the first major breakthrough from Hillbrow SAPS where a suspect was arrested for a similar crime.
In April 2022, Hillbrow SAPS arrested a Zimbabwean man for operating another backyard ‘Home Affairs’.
The man faced 241 charges, including fraud, forgery and alteration, and was sentenced last year to 15 years’ direct imprisonment.
