Blank passports, visa stickers found in office of Ghana Embassy IT officer accused of concealing digital records
Auditors who conducted a forensic audit at Ghana’s Embassy in Washington, DC, uncovered blank biometric passport booklets, active passport materials and visa stickers in the office of an IT officer, alongside signs suggesting that digital records connected to his work may have been removed from official computers before the audit.
Auditors at the Ghana Embassy in Washington, DC, conducted a forensic examination and discovered blank biometric passport booklets, active passport materials, and visa stickers in the office of IT officer Fred Kwarteng. The office was searched during a special audit that covered the period from January 2017 to June 2025. The discovery included eighteen (18) passport booklets, four of which were blank biometric booklets, and fifty-nine (59) used and unused visa stickers.
Biometric passport booklets are highly secure documents that require strict custody, inventory management, and accountability procedures. The audit revealed that Mr. Kwarteng's office lacked a proper account of passport stock management between 2016 and 2025. Moreover, the office was found to be lacking an internal Solid-State Drive (SSD) in the desktop computer assigned to him, which contained the operating system, user files, emails, and system logs.
This suggests that sensitive consular information may have been tampered with, removed, altered, or destroyed before the audit.
Written by urgent.news from MyJoyOnline Ghana's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
