South African forged passport

I refer to an article published in The Jakarta Post on July 22, 1997 under the heading Expats involved in drug crimes by Christiani Tumelap. Mention is made that nine of those arrested for their alleged involvement in drug-related crimes were from African countries, one of them being South Africa.

I would like to set the record straight. The foreigners were identified as non-South African citizens traveling on forged or stolen South African passports.

It is increasingly often the case that criminals acquire and alter South African passports. When these criminals are apprehended with South African travel documents, it appears as though South African citizen are involved in illegal activities, when in fact that is not the case.

South Africa has recently taken steps to make the forgery or alteration of South African passports more difficult by introducing computer readable passports. These steps have so far been successful in limiting the forgery or alteration of our passports.

BS KUBHEKA

Ambassador

South African Embassy

Jakarta