Tanzanian actress Irene Uwoya recalls being arrested in Zambia for owning 25 passports
By Steve Ireri, January 30, 2026Tanzanian actress Irene Uwoya has recalled the circumstances that led to her arrest and eventual imprisonment in Zambia after she was found in possession of 25 passports.
Speaking about the ordeal in an interview shared by a local Bongo Podcast on Thursday, January 29, 2026, Uwoya revealed that the arrest happened while she was still very young and navigating life away from home.
According to her account, she was found with several passports bearing different nationalities, all of which were recovered from her luggage at the time of her arrest.
“I was caught with about twenty-five passports, and they were all mine. At the time, I didn’t fully understand the situation,” she shared.
She also disclosed that she had a large sum of money in cash in her possession, a situation that immediately raised suspicion with authorities.
“I also had around one million dollars in cash in my bag. The passports belonged to different countries,” Uwoya revealed.
The actress explained that she was fully aware of the passports but attributed her involvement in the situation to youthful naivety and misplaced trust.
She said she was drawn into the ordeal through a romantic relationship, blaming love for clouding her judgment at the time.
“I blame love; my partner back then was the one who got me involved with those passports,” she shared.
Impact of the ordeal
Following her arrest, Uwoya was detained for an extended period, during which she lost contact with her family.
She recalled how her sudden disappearance left her mother deeply worried, unaware that her daughter had been imprisoned. It was only later that her family discovered that she had been jailed.
“When I was arrested, I disappeared from home, and my mother was searching for me, not knowing I had been jailed,” she shared.
Uwoya further explained that the events unfolded during a time when she was studying in Uganda.
She noted that she initially had an outdated paper passport and had gone to immigration offices to renew her travel documents. It was during this process that she met the man who would later become romantically involved with her.
“All of this happened while I was studying in Uganda. I had an old paper passport, not the book version, so I went to the immigration offices to renew it. That’s when I met him, he called me ‘angel,’ and I didn’t know why,” she shared.
She described how the relationship developed quickly, leading her to follow him across different countries without fully understanding the consequences of her actions.
“He followed me and came and said hi, and just after that moment, weirdly, I started following him everywhere he was going,” she shared.
At the time, Uwoya said she was only about 16 years old, making her particularly vulnerable and easily influenced.
She lamented that what had begun as a relationship soon turned into a life-altering experience that resulted in her serving two years in prison in Zambia.
“We started going around different countries together, and I was only about sixteen. He was like my boyfriend. That relationship ended up putting me in a very difficult situation, and I ended up serving two years in a Zambian prison,” she said.