The Department of Home Affairs has made two more arrests in connection with corruption and fraud investigations, bringing the total number of arrests linked to Home Affairs-related cases this month to six.

The arrests form part of the department’s intensified crackdown on corruption within immigration and civic services systems, carried out in collaboration with the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks).

In the first operation, conducted on Tuesday (12 May) at the Harrison Home Affairs office in Johannesburg, officials arrested a naturalised foreign national following an investigation into allegations of fraudulent registrations on the National Population Register.

The department said in a statement released on Thursday (14 May) that the suspect allegedly falsely claimed paternity of five foreign children, resulting in them being fraudulently registered under a naturalised South African identity document.

In a separate operation at the White River Home Affairs office on monday (11 May), a senior immigration officer was arrested on charges of corruption during an authorised entrapment operation.

The arrest follows allegations that the official demanded payment before returning identity and travel documents belonging to a Mozambican national.

Investigators from the Department of Home Affairs’ Counter Corruption and Security Services branch worked alongside the Hawks in both operations.

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber said the department was now securing dismissals, arrests, and prosecutions on an almost weekly basis as efforts to root out corruption intensified.

“We are now securing dismissals, arrests and prosecutions on a near-weekly basis as Home Affairs ramps up our cleanup operation,” Schreiber said.

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“Every crooked official and complicit member of the public must know that it is now only a matter of time until their turn arrives.”

He added that the department would continue its campaign until all corrupt officials had been removed through dismissals and criminal convictions.