South Africa: Former Home Affairs Officer Sentenced to 12 Years for Fraudulent Passport Scheme

4 August 2024
Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)
By Victoria O'regan

The Durban Specialised Commercial Crime Court sentenced former Home Affairs employee Judith Zuma to 12 years.

Listen to this article 4 min Listen to this article 4 min Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber welcomed the sentencing of former Department of Home Affairs official Judith Zuma last week as a "breakthrough in the fight against organised corruption."

"The message sent by this conviction is crystal clear: if you engage in corruption, we will find you and we will pursue you until you are locked up. Under this new administration, we will not rest until we have cleansed the scourge of corruption from the face of Home Affairs," Schreiber said in a statement on Friday, 2 August.

advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove adsZuma was sentenced by the Durban Specialised Commercial Crime Court on Thursday, 1 August, to an effective 12 years' imprisonment for her involvement in a fraudulent passport scheme. Zuma had pleaded guilty to all the charges against her, which included 192 counts of fraud and contravention of the Identification Act 68 of 1997, and the Immigration Act 13 of 2002.

In 2021, she was arrested in a sting operation after she had attempted to bribe a Home Affairs counter-corruption officer with R10,000. Zuma was dismissed from the department in December 2021, "following an...

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