A 49-year-old man, who allegedly had been raking in millions of rands by manufacturing fake documents, was arrested in Durban on Thursday night.
He had been operating a home affairs ”office” from his home, said police spokesperson Superintendent Vincent Mdunge on Friday. A woman believed to have been facilitating the operation was also arrested.
The man, however, had never worked for the Home Affairs Department and it is unclear where he had obtained knowledge and expertise on manufacturing illegal identity documents, passports, birth and death certificates.
”He was making these documents and then charged people between R40 000 to R60 000 for it,” said Mdunge.
Durban’s organised crime unit, the Asset Forfeiture Unit, Home Affairs authorities and the crime intelligence unit were following the case for the last eight months and finally swooped on the man’s home at 7pm on Thursday.
”We recovered computers with information on all his clients, some printers and other devices, as well as a huge quantity of ready-made ID documents, passports, birth and death certificates.”
The woman arrested at the house was believed to have had ”close ties in facilitating the scams”.
Mdunge could not say whether the woman was the suspect’s wife.
Mdunge said he could not divulge too much about the police’s follow-up investigation and could not say whether those who had purchased documents from the man would be arrested.
”All we can say is that anyone caught with such illegal documents would be seen as accomplices,” Mdunge said.
More arrests were imminent.
The two suspects are expected to appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Monday. – Sapa