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UK man’s Home Affairs “extortion” nightmare

Source: Biznews, 06/05/2024

A United Kingdom (UK) citizen - who laid a criminal charge of corruption against a Home Affairs official who wanted R60 000 to renew the retirement visas of him and his wife - is still waiting for the police probe to show results. He is also still waiting for the visas he applied for in 2022.
A United Kingdom (UK) citizen - who laid a criminal charge of corruption against a Home Affairs official who wanted R60 000 to renew the retirement visas of him and his wife - is still waiting for the police probe to show results. He is also still waiting for the visas he applied for in 2022.
In June last year (2023), Chris Campbell went to see Paul O’Sullivan of O’Sullivan Brosnan & Associates, who took the case under the auspices of Forensics for Justice. O’Sullivan prepared a criminal complaint and laid a charge of corruption and extortion at Sandringham SAPS from where the case was transferred to the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigations (DPCI).
However, “The Hawks appear to have just sat on this case since it was opened,” Campbell says.
“It took some time for them to actually assign a Warrant Officer (28th August 2023). Then on 19th October 2023, I was informed that it had been re-assigned to Warrant Officer M E Rasekhokha. Since then I have received one call from him. His tone wasn’t very encouraging and it seemed to me that he believed that it was just as the DHA employees claimed ‘Our emails were hacked’!
“I queried him about following up on the two bank account numbers that I had provided and suggested that these would show the magnitude of the crime but he told me that the FNB account number for one of the accounts didn’t look real and so he was not going to pursue that one. However he didn’t know about the Discovery Bank Account so would investigate that one.
“I’ve heard nothing since and don’t hold any expectations especially when so much time has passed…”
In a sworn affidavit made by Campbell, he describes how a Home Affairs official had told him he would need to pay R30 000 per application to get the process moving and receive the visas in seven to 10 days.
“I replied via Whatsapp and asked if a lower price can be negotiated. He replied saying that they would be able to make it R20 000 per application if it was an immediate payment.”
Once the method of payment was agreed on, the official sent through the account details for the bribe. It was a Discovery Bank account.
The Home Affairs employee then told Campbell that he had to convince the officials above him to accept this way of payment.
“He then asked me to do an immediate payment of R20 000 as a down payment. He requested this so he could bargain with his senior officials and then I was to bring the outstanding amount the following week.”
When Campbell informed the Home Affairs employee that he was having issues logging in, the official “then replied stating that the ‘guys’ were annoyed with him at that point as he had made them wait at the office until late” (on a Friday).
The “scammer” then deleted the Whatsapp conversations but a copy had already been made in order to secure evidence.
Campbell then decided to seek an urgent police investigation as he feared that if he did not pay, he would not receive the visas and that he would be staying in South Africa illegally. Later, a visa agent was able to confirm that all the Campbell couple’s paperwork was still at Home Affairs, but in the stack still to be processed.
Meanwhile, Campbell is still waiting for the visas to be issued. “We have actually been able to leave the country and return, purely because the situation is so well known that the border officials allow it to be done on production of our receipts. However other officials like banks will not allow accounts to be opened without a valid current visa and it’s even difficult to renew the car licence.”
O’Sullivan has even taken up the case with the office of President Cyril Ramaphosa. “We did the case pro bono, to see if we could get something rolling for these pensioners. There are too many cases like this,” he wrote. Still, Campbell is waiting…
BizNews has written to Hawks boss Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya to ask for an update on the investigation.
Meanwhile O’Sullivan’s Forensics for Justice, have launched an application in the Pretoria High Court, to have the appointment of General Lebeya set aside.
According to O’Sullivan large swathes of the criminal justice system remain captured or populated by lazy and unethical officers.
“Pockets of the system still work and are populated by good quality professional police officials. But the pockets that do work properly are getting smaller and further apart,” he says.
He cites a recent murder case, where the investigating officer was so incompetent, that when he went with a colleague to request a new investigating officer, they were met with stiff opposition, from an incompetent Colonel, who clearly did not understand the job herself.
Commenting on the case of Chris Campbell, O’Sullivan stresses that the corruption within Home Affairs is so deep-rooted, it will take a very long time to get it working normal again.
“The very idea of introducing VFS into the system, as a middleman, with no decision-making process, only to handle the collection of documentation and biometrics, was to remove public face-to-face contact, and thereby remove the ability of a home affairs official to request a bribe. Now, the Home Affairs officials simply sit on everything, to await an official complaint, then the bribery mechanism kicks in.”
O’Sullivan says the meta data of the e-mails from the allegedly corrupt home affairs officials, proves that the e-mails originated from within Home Affairs. He therefore doesn’t buy the fobbing off of the corruption on the complainant’s email having been hacked.
When asked if it is likely to improve any time soon, O’Sullivan says: “It will ONLY change with a change of government, as there is no longer any part of government that functions well and free of corruption.

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