48 fake immigration stamps unearthed at border post

A 50-YEAR-OLD man believed to be part of a syndicate operating a bogus Home Affairs office with 48 fake immigration stamps in Beitbridge is on the run after skipping bail on Wednesday.

Vanu Juawo (50) and Osman Sibanda (24) were found in possession 41 replica stamps of the South African Immigration Department and seven imitations of the Zimbabwean immigration authorities.

Sibanda is already serving a twoyear jail term after Beitbridge resident magistrate Mr Langton Mukwengi found him guilty on one count of contravening a section of the Immigration Act. A third member of the syndicate, Foster Muleya, who was in the habit of crossing borders using the fake stamps was fined $250 by the same magistrate.

Initially Juawo and Sibanda were jointly charged, but Juawo’s case was set for trial on Wednesday after he changed his previous plea of guilty to not guilty. A warrant of arrest has since been issued against Juawo.

The two were busted soon after endorsing the fake stamps on six passports on Friday last week. Sibanda was left with two effective years to serve after Mr Mukwengi conditionally suspended six months of his 30 months jail term for five years.

Prosecuting, Mr Oswell Arufandi told the court that on 7 April this year, Batanai Shadreck presented his passport number EN277288 to an immigration officer at Beitbridge for clearance into Zimbabwe. Batanai was travelling from South Africa.

The alert immigration officer then noted a fake exit stamp No. 120 endorsement dated 7 January 2017. He then questioned Batanai where he had got his passport stamped and he implicated Sibanda. A report was then made to the police who arrested Sibanda.

A team of police detectives working with immigration authorities recovered Sibanda’s passport (EN744820) and another belonging to Sithembiso Ncube (CN392685), and both of them had fake stamps.

The State said upon further interrogations, Sibanda implicated Juawo as the one who provided him with the fake stamps.

He led the team to Juawo’s house, where they recovered three more passports endorsed with similar stamps and the 48 replica immigration stamps.

Juawo was subsequently arrested while the stamps and passports were confiscated by the police. Muleya’s shenanigans came to an end when he was intercepted by an alert immigration officer on 3 May while attempting to leave for South Africa, using the same modus operandi. The incident comes a few weeks after a 29-year-old Zimbabwean man, Duncan Danda was jailed for six years by a Musina (South Africa) magistrate for opening an illegal office at Beitbridge Border Post. Danda was arrested at his base within the border taxi rank on 3 January by the neighbouring country’s special crime unit, The Hawks. Danda was convicted on two counts of contravening a section of the Immigration Act.

For the first count he was sentenced to six years imprisonment which were set aside for five years and fined R10 000 for the second count.

Danda is accused of giving prospective travellers a stay of up to 90 days in that country.

Under South Africa’s immigration laws, Zimbabweans are allowed a stay for not more than 90 days in that country per year.