The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has placed new restrictions on Afghan travelers in the wake of a recent incident involving an Iranian national obtaining an Afghan passport fraudulently.

Documents received by TOLOnews indicate that a female Iranian, named Mino Muqaddami, successfully obtained an Afghan national passport, before she was identified by UAE authorities. Muqaddami has never travelled to Afghanistan. The incident has reportedly created mistrust among UAE officials regarding the credibility of Afghan passports, prompting them to refuse Afghans entry into their country unless their passports have been certified by the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA).

Documents shown to TOLOnews, the accuracy of which has been confirmed by Afghan officials, indicate that Muqaddami is a resident of Tehran and her parents are Iranian. She holds both Iranian and Afghani passports. The expiration date of her Iranian passport is March 2017, and her Afghan passport was issued on Jun 20, despite the fact that she has never travelled to Afghanistan. After being identified by UAE police, Ms. Muqaddami confessed that she purchased the Afghan passport for 20,000 UAE Dirham, or 5,500 USD.

The signature of the head of Afghanistan's passport department at the Ministry of Interior (MoI), Sayed Omar Saboor, is fully visible on the passport, but the signatures of Muqaddami herself is fake, exposing that the passport was sent to her in the UAE.

According to Saboor, the fake passport was issued from a branch office in western Herat province, which borders Iran. He also claimed that Muqaddami was holding a Afghan national identity card when she applied for the passport, and that the identity card's veracity had been confirmed by several officials.

"She is holding NIC, a Herat district lawyer has endorsed her as a resident and the Herat Police Chief has also signed the document," Saboor said on Saturday. "Then she was issued the passport from the Herat passport department," he added.

While corruption within the Afghan government and administrative branches throughout the provinces is a well-known reality, the case of Muqaddami is likely to spark a particular amount of backlash because of the consequences it has on Afghans' ability to travel to the UAE.

"There is corruption, andpeople get multiple passports with different names," an Afghan businessman named Abdul Jabbar told TOLOnews. "The UAE has imposed more restrictions on us because of this issue."

"I have been here in Kabul since Eid-ul-Fitr and I can't travel to the UAE and all my equipment and machines are sitting in that country," another Afghan businessman named Ahmadullah said.

The UAE government recently imposed new restrictions on Iranian nationals travelling to the UAE. It is now said many Iranians and Pakistanis seek out Afghan passports in order to get easier access to the UAE.

"It is important to mention that there is a need for closer monitoring in the passport distribution process in order to prevent those trying to fake it or enter the system through fraud," said Ahmad Rashid Behroz, the head of Joint Anti Corruption Evaluation and Monitoring Committee.

The current mistrust between UAE customs and the Afghan passport office worries many Afghan leaders. "The problem could cause major loses to our investors and businessmen, so the government must act," MP Ahmad Shah Ramazan said.