Guinea-Bissau’s Interior Minister reported on Monday the successful dismantling of a passport fraud network within the ministry, resulting in the arrest of three implicated officials.
Airport authorities took notice when several Guinea-Bissau passport holders, unable to communicate in the country’s languages, raised suspicion, prompting further investigation.
“At this stage of the investigations, we have found 41 people carrying (illegal) Guinea-Bissau passports,” including Cameroonians, Guineans, Nigerians and Senegalese, said Interior Minister Botche Cande.
He added that some of them “could be charged with a crime.”
“Three of our officials involved in this case have also been arrested. Work is focused on the offices where civil status documents are issued,” Cande said.
Since 2022, the Interior Ministry’s Chief of Staff, Braima Tcham, disclosed an ongoing operation uncovering a network involving a Cameroonian intermediary facilitating illicit passport transactions with the migration and borders department.
The implicated officials accepted payments of around 400,000 CFA francs ($656) for fraudulent birth certificates.
Subsequently, these documents were processed in the identity cards department, leading to the issuance of passports bearing the minister’s signature.
Tcham revealed that over 500 passports were issued to non-Guineans, raising concerns about the accessibility of these documents, attracting aspiring immigrants.
In a related incident, the French newspaper Liberation exposed the trafficking of diplomatic passports by the Guinea-Bissau government in France in 2021.
