Staff Reporter, Johannesburg | Zimbabweans living in South Africa are presenting a varied range of fake IDs that have hit the country.
Fake documents ranging from the so said “hard to dodge” Zimbabwean passport, to affidavits, and birth certificates, are being cooked in the streets of Hillbrow predominately by Nigerian nationals.
In a shock revelation, ZimEye.com met up with a Mozambican national in possession of a tampered with Zimbabwean passport displaying a special dispensation SA work permit. The passport looked so genuine that only Zimbabwean immigration officials could realise that is has been tempered with.
The Mozambican claimed that he bought the passport from named Nigerians in Hillbrow who use their information technology skills to remove the face of the original owner and embed a picture of the person buying the document.
On further survey, ZimEye.com discovered that most Zimbabwean drivers in South Africa are using fake Zimbabwean International Driver’s Licences. The documents are also being manufactured at various internet caffes’ run by Nigerians in Hillbrow. So obviously faked is the document that anyone who knows the original will not need an expert to pick the fraud up. A genuine international driver’s licence is issued in Zimbabwe by the Automobile Association of Zimbabwe.
The genuine licence is in the form of a small white booklet with a watermarked cover. The fake ones produced in Hillbrow come in different forms with some produced in laminated credit card size cards some in green and branding a Central Vehicle Registry Harare stamp.
At Beitbridge several cross border transporters were seen selling ready signed and stamped blank affidavits from various police stations in Harare and Bulawayo. The affidavits are a prerequisite for a single parent travelling with a minor from the other parent authorising them to cross the border with the minor.
A Nigerian national-run business shop in Hillbrow is also making a killing producing Zimbabwean Police Clearance Certificates which people use when applying for Residence Permits in the rich Southern African country. The clearance certificates bear a fake Harare Central Police station stamp.
Abridged Zimbabwean birth certificates are also being produced in the highly criminal streets of Hillbrow. The hand written birth certificates look so original that it is hard to detect the difference.
Copies of Zimbabwean child birth records and even death certificates were seen lying idle on the desk of the so called business documents producer along the busy “Claim Street” in the heart of Hillbrow. South African asylum seekers permits and South African identity documents are also part of the fake documents Zimbabweans are buying from the Nigerians in order to stay in South Africa.
A Zimbabwean national who was interviewed by ZimEye.com said that they could not avoid getting the fake documents from the Nigerians in Hillbrow as the processes of attaining them back home are too tedious and expensive.