A forensic audit at Ghana's Embassy in Washington, DC, has uncovered 18 passport booklets — including four blank biometric passports — and 59 used and unused visa stickers in the office of the Mission's IT officer, Fred Kwarteng.

According to reporting by Pact Against Corruption (PAC), the discovery was made during a special audit covering January 2017 to June 2025. Auditors said the Embassy could not fully account for its passport stock or explain how the blank booklets ended up in Kwarteng's custody.

A pattern of warnings, ignored

The findings carry added weight because an earlier internal audit, conducted in May 2021, had already flagged weaknesses in the Embassy's passport inventory controls — including discrepancies between serial numbers supplied by Ghana's biometric passport production partner, Ridge PAC, and those recorded by the Mission. That 2021 review warned that excess passport stock raised the risk of theft or misuse.

A private business, official channels

Auditors also found that Kwarteng offered passport and visa application support through a private company whose website was linked directly from the official Embassy website. Given the materials found in his office, the audit said the circumstances "presuppose" that Kwarteng may have been engaged in the fraudulent issuance of passports and visas outside official Embassy processes.

A former Embassy source disputed that conclusion, telling PAC that Kwarteng had previously liaised with passport printers, and suggesting that some booklets may have remained in his office after printing errors produced duplicated serial numbers, rendering those booklets unusable.

What forensic examiners found

A forensic examination confirmed that 15 of the empty booklets recovered were genuine Ghana passport stock. Seven, however, showed security deficiencies on their biodata pages — including missing polycarbonate overlays, missing thermochromic print, missing Optical Variable Ink, irregular Machine-Readable Zone alignment, and irregular cancellation markings.

Missing hard drive raises new questions

The audit also flagged concerns over possible attempts to remove or conceal digital records. Kwarteng's desktop computer was found without its internal SSD — the component that stores the operating system, files, emails and system logs. Separately, auditors recovered six used SATA hard drives, laptops, an iPad, and Samsung and iPhone devices, along with RAM modules.

The audit report described the condition of the office as showing "signs of disruption and disorder consistent with a hurried removal of equipment and documents." Auditors said the missing SSD raised a reasonable suspicion that it may have been intentionally taken to prevent examination of records relating to possible manipulation of passport records, visa processing data, or financial transactions.

Two central concerns

Taken together, PAC's reporting on the audit points to two major concerns: serious weaknesses in the Embassy's control of sensitive passport and visa materials, and the possible removal of electronic evidence before auditors could carry out their inspection.