• Administrative expungement: For convictions that meet specific legal criteria, ISS Investigations will assist you in compiling and submitting the application to the Department of Justice.
• Presidential pardon: For more complex cases or if 10 years have not passed since your conviction, the company can prepare a detailed application for a presidential pardon. This is a more involved process and success is not guaranteed. 

If you use ISS - Investigations or apply directly to the Department of Justice, you will generally need to meet these criteria to be eligible for expungement under South African law: 
• Time elapsed: At least 10 years must have passed since the date of the conviction.
• Sentence type: You must not have been sentenced to direct imprisonment without the option of a fine. Qualifying sentences include fines under R20,000, correctional supervision, or suspended sentences.
• Clean record since: You must not have been convicted of any other offense during the 10 years after your initial conviction that resulted in a prison sentence without the option of a fine.
• Type of crime: The offense was not a serious one, such as a sexual offense against a child or a person with a mental disability. 

• Contact ISS Investigations: You can reach out to the firm for a consultation to determine your eligibility and discuss your options.
• Get a Police Clearance Certificate (PCC): The process requires a recent Police Clearance Certificate from the South African Police Service (SAPS) Criminal Record Centre.
• Submit the application: If you meet the criteria for a standard expungement, ISS Investigations will prepare and submit your application to the Department of Justice.
• Wait for the result: Once the Department of Justice issues an expungement certificate, the SAPS will remove the conviction from your criminal record. 

Please Note: Once your Charged (Finger Prints Taken) your Charge (Crime) will Reflect ont the System although you were never Convicted. We can also Remove it from the System.

What does it mean to be charged with a crime?
Let’s begin with charge. When a person is charged with a crime, a formal allegation (a statement not yet proven) of an offense is made.

We typically refer to charges in the context of criminal law, which concerns crimes considered to harm society or the state. Indictments are charges that initiate a criminal case, presented by a grand jury and usually for felonies or other serious crimes. One can be charged with lesser crimes, too, called misdemeanors.

What does it mean to be convicted of a crime?
The judicial process is a complex one, but, in general, once a person is charged, they go on trial. A judge hears the evidence presented against them (brought by the prosecution) as well as as their defense.

If convicted, the person has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt or declared guilty of the offense.

What does it mean to be sentenced for a crime?
After a conviction in criminal proceedings, sentencing is next.

When sentenced, the convicted criminal is issued a formal judgment that usually pronounces the punishment, which often includes time in prison or fines.

The convict can appeal the sentence, but a sentence usually takes effect while appeals occur.

If a client has been convicted of an offence and a period of ten (10) years has not yet elapsed since the date of conviction, ISS-INVESTIGATIONS  can assist such an individual with a Presidential Pardon application.

Presidential Pardons are quite in-depth and complex and must include clear and strong motivations to support your application to have your criminal record removed. Such an application takes approximately 2 years to finalise at the Department of Justice as there are many role players involved in the process. Ultimately the application will end up on the President’s desk and will require his approval – this is discretionary and such an application is therefore unfortunately not guaranteed. It is for this reason that it is recommended that a client utilise our services when preparing such an application, as ISS-INVESTIGATIONS know what to include in the application to make the chances of success as high as possible.

• Facilitate the application: A PI or associated company can act as a courier to hand-deliver your application to the SAPS Criminal Record Centre in Pretoria and collect the certificate once it is ready. This can significantly reduce the standard waiting time, which can otherwise take months.
• Fingerprint processing: Some companies have special equipment to electronically capture fingerprints and submit them to Afiswitch, a system that checks fingerprints against the SAPS database. The resulting report can serve as a police clearance for certain purposes.
• Confirm documentation: A service can check your application documents to ensure they are complete and correct before submission, preventing delays caused by errors.
• Track your application: For a fee, a third-party service can monitor your application's progress with SAPS and provide you with updates. 

• Issue the certificate: No private individual or company, including a PI, has the legal authority to issue an official Police Clearance Certificate. That function is exclusively performed by SAPS.
• Guarantee a specific outcome: A PI cannot guarantee that you will receive a clean clearance or that the certificate will be issued within a specific timeframe, as the final processing is in the hands of SAPS.
• Alter a criminal record: If a criminal record exists, a PI cannot remove or change it. Only a legal process, such as expungement, can remove a criminal record under specific circumstances.