The Ministry of Internal Affairs has kicked off investigations into circumstances under which a cartel operating in Kampala has sold 22,000 Ugandan passports to criminals abroad.
Internal Affairs spokesperson, Simon Mundeyi told journalists on Monday that the cartel operates around Nkrumah and Dewinton roads in Kampala City .
“The cartel buys genuine passports from Ugandans for shs10 million and sell them to non-Ugandans in United Arab Emirates that they use in drug trafficking,” Mundeyi said.
He said ongoing investigations have so far indicated that at least 220,000 passports have been bought from Ugandans.
The passports bought from Ugandans are later sold at around $5,000 which is approximately 18.5 million.
Internal Affairs said whereas these passports are sold to foreigners, they don’t use them for travel but rather as identification documents.
“We understand the passports ae easily used by fraudsters who deal in drugs. We have over 600 Ugandans living in UAE claiming their passports got lost but we have found out they sold them. Once they sell the passports, they come running to our office reporting them as lost and ask for replacement,” Mundeyi said.
He said one suspect has been arrested over this scam and he will provide leads to the arrest of his associates.
Mundeyi said in a bid to curtail the vice of Ugandans, especially in UAE selling passports , all those who report having lost and applying for new ones are only allowed to process them from the Ministry of Internal Affairs headquarters in Kampala.
“We are trying to make it expensive so that Ugandans do cost benefit analysis.”
