Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber says the department’s intensified crackdown on corruption is yielding results, with arrests and prosecutions expected to continue as efforts to clean up civic services and immigration systems are stepped up.
The Department of Home Affairs has arrested a naturalised foreign national in Johannesburg following an investigation into a fraudulent paternity scheme that allegedly resulted in five foreign children being unlawfully registered on South Africa’s National Population Register.
The arrest, carried out on May 12, 2026 at the Harrison Home Affairs office, forms part of an ongoing crackdown on corruption and identity fraud within the country’s civic services system.
Authorities allege that the suspect falsely claimed to be the biological father of five foreign children, using the fraudulent declaration to secure their registration under a naturalised South African identity document.
The move effectively placed the children on the National Population Register, triggering a wider investigation into the integrity of registration processes.
