Home Affairs uncovers Chinese visa and permit racket

CAPE TOWN - The Home Affairs Department says it has uncovered a visa and permit racket involving over 3,000 applications from Chinese nationals.

It’s been revealed in parliament on Tuesday that hundreds of these applications were submitted using the same address.

The year-long investigation by the department is in response to the so-called Lubisi Report which investigated the backlogs and fraud involving the issuing of documents by Home Affairs dating back to 2004.

The department says at least 31 officials are implicated in helping Chinese nationals to fraudulently obtain visas.

The Home Affairs Department says two of its staff previously stationed at the Beijing mission have collectively been linked to around 200 of the applications in question.

Forensic Investigator Peter Bishop said an audit has revealed that the same address was used for 488 applications made by Chinese nationals.

477 applications were linked to vacant address, and 75 applications were submitted with a non-existent address.

"We’d expect each applicant or a few applicants that are related to be sharing an address, but not hundreds of them sharing an address."

But more cases have since been flagged for investigation, and the number is said to growing.

"31 officials have been linked to 187 applicants with 371 applications."

The department said it is still assessing how many of these cases must be referred for criminal action.