The annual rush to cross the borders into neighbouring countries is on, and forgers are making a killing with fake Covid certificates, needed to prove your negative test results. Picture: Nigel Sibanda
The perennial jostling, hustle and bustle at Gauteng’s busiest stations Bree, Newtown Bus Terminus in Johannesburg, as well as Bosman in Pretoria has kicked-off, signalling the start of the cross-border December holiday travel.
But in the midst of animated bus operators’ agents, luggage carriers, and hawkers fervently vying for customers, there is a service that is spoken of in hushed tones, with its mere mention capable of stirring suspicion and ending friendly conversations.
This is the clandestine service of forgery rings providing desperate travellers, mostly those destined for Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique, with fake negative Covid certificates needed to cross the border from South Africa.
At the beginning of this month the government of Zimbabwe imposed stricter Covid prevention measures, with every person arriving in the country required to have a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test taken within the previous 48 hours.
Since then there have been increasing reports of forged negative test results sold for as little R400 at these bus terminals and nearby internet cafés in Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Careful not to overtly admit to be able to organise a fake certificate, a man who identified himself as a bus operator host at Bosman station in Pretoria insisted “that is not a problem…you book your ticket to Masvingo, pay R1 800 that includes everything”
Hoping for him to give more, I press on and emphasise on the fake certificate part but he barks “the fee I gave you includes everything” before walking away.
John Nkuna, who ekes a living by using his trolley to carry passengers’ luggage into the station, explained that it would be near impossible for me to get the certificate without booking a ticket.
He explained that adding the fake certificate fee into the bus fare added an extra layer of security around the syndicate.
“Before it was easy, I would also know who to refer you to but then there were talks of people sniffing around and real possibilities of arrests. Now you have to carry bags, have cash and actually board the bus to get the fake certificate,” Nkuna elaborates.
He also warns that asking too many questions, especially about the forged negative covid certificates raised suspicion, adding that the middleman were also very wary of local people as they could easily be police or journalists.
After two days of hitting brick walls, there was a glimmer of hope when a short, scruffy man with piercing and curious eyes who introduced himself as Chester Mangwini offered to help.
I explain to him that I cannot book the bus because it is my wife travelling to Zimbabwe, not myself, and the issue is she is driving
“R600. You give me half, you wait for me here and pay me the rest when I return,” he says.
But I protest that he could simply vanish with my money and he retorts that I was wasting his time before disappearing into the crowd.
The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) has noted the proliferation of forged covid documentation in the black market and monitoring the trend.
Researcher Richard Chelin said he and his ISS colleague Craig Moffat have been monitoring the Covid forged documents.
Moffat said they have been told that in Yeoville at Times Square there were Congolese nationals printing the certificates from an internet café at a hefty price.
According to Zimbabwe’s Covid restrictions, every person will be required to take a PCR test at the airport upon arrival.
Persons who test negative will quarantine at their own expense for ten days, while persons who test positive will go into isolation.
But Moffat said people who use taxis and buses were not privileged and could not afford to quarantine at their own costs.
He said its costs about 100 dollars a day in quarantine, which is steep for many people travelling around this time.
“Already the Beit bridge border post was chaotic. How do you quarantine those people? There are trucks, buses, taxis and other vehicles already teeming at the border. I can imagine the forgery syndicates would use such entry points for their fake certificates,” Moffat said.
Zimbabwe has announced its intention to use the African Union Trusted Travel process to authenticate Covid tests for passengers, with all passengers arriving in, departing from or transiting Zimbabwe required to validate their Covid RT PCR test via the African Union Trusted Travel or UNDP Global Haven systems.
These systems will generate a digital Trusted Travel reference code for your test, which should be presented upon request but one should arrange to take a private test.
According to the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, forged negative Covid-19 test certificates have been found on travellers at international airports in the UK and Dubai.
Two men were reportedly arrested in Zimbabwe for selling fake negative Covid test results to travellers at border check points, with such cases detected at the border of Mozambique and South Africa.
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