Three arrested for illegally marrying SA women with foreign nationals

GREYVILLE – An intelligence-led operation by Crime Intelligence officers, working together with Metro Police Tactical Support Unit, Sydenham Trio Task Team and Home Affairs Immigration officers has uncovered a clandestine Home Affairs office which was used to facilitate illegal marriages and spousal visas at a block of flats on Matthews Meyiwa Road in Greyville, Durban on Monday afternoon.

The suspects would get hold of identity documents of South African women and marry them to strangers, especially undocumented foreign nationals so that the fake husbands would attain South African citizenship. Preliminary investigations have thus far identified a Home Affairs official who has been working in cahoots with the suspects. More arrests cannot be ruled out as investigations unfold.

Several application forms, copies of identity documents and electronic devices were seized. Of the three suspects, two men will be charged with fraud and the woman will face a charge of defeating the ends of justice after she attempted to conceal evidence by tearing some of the documents and threw them inside a bin. The suspects are expected to appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, 30 October 2024.