In another life I do remember someone I know very well meeting three pilots from: (edited to read: somewhere up northwest in Africa, near that bulgy bit) pilots at the CAA at Waterfall. They'd just been issued with full South African ATPLs on the basis of their bulgy bit licences and they were hot footing it to Gatwick to get British validations or licences, whatever they could squeeze out of it, based on the full SAA ATPLs with which they'd been issued. I presume they'd have had the odd law exam to write but it was one heck of a short cut. They guys were very proud of the fact that they'd been able to engineer this and became extremely twitchy when the person I know very well flashed his UK ATPL (the one he slaved for ) and got their names from the entry register.
As for the examines in general? They're forgotten as soon as you've walked out the door, passed the subjects or thrown your notes away. What you need to have in your log book is a minimum number of hours flown solo, on complex aircraft, in winter and/or in what might be called challenging meteorological terrain with no auto pilot and no nanny control state. Let's say 1,000 hours of that and you will be a better and safer pilot if only because you have survived. South African flying is a doddle and I have thousands of hours of it to prove that point. I also have thousands of hours of the other sort to prove that point too.
Toodle pip.

Cavorting, I agree on this one. One of the smartest pilots I converted onto a 747-400 back in the day had around 5000 hours of single engine Cessna flying North of the Arctic Circle in Canada. Beyond the checklists I had nothing to teach him.

I believe he made Captain on the Boeing some 12 years later. I would have taken my family on his aircraft anytime.

Back in the glory days, as far as I remember of course, on SAA the Captain was the Captain, wherever he was. The licence system broke down into......

ATPL. No weight restriction.
SCPL. Weight restriction to be PIC.
CPL. Weight restriction to be CPL.

So a SFO would typically have an SCPL, a boy pilot a CPL and the Captain an ATPL.
Boy pilots were used to carry crew bags and were jolly handy to take messages back to pretty passengers and suchlike sundry items.

BN2 - Once a person has passed the written exams for the ATPL it tells anyone who needs to know that the person has raised themselves to that level, whether they maintain it later is a different matter.

The way I understand it:

He was never a flight engineer, but worked at SAA Ops as a dispatcher until he had a CPL when he joined SAA as a pilot.
SAA has a condition of employment that all pilots have to have an ATPL within 5 years after starting or be dismissed.
The SA-CAA still uses an almost illegible and obsolete paper license system where you get new "pages" for your license booklet at each renewal.
These plastic booklets with transparent sleeves come in different colours (blue for a CPL and green for an ATPL)
There are only three places/lines in this booklet of pages where the words Airline Transport Pilot/Commercial Pilot or ATPL/CPL appear. The rest of the license is identical.
When the 5 years were coming up, the pilot had still not acquired his ATPL, so he apparently found a green booklet and doctored his valid CPL into an ATPL. I don't know if he ever passed the exams, but he certainly never held the license.
For the next 20 years, he annually went through the same process of document fraud, while maintaining full airline currency as per SAA's training programme.
He refused upgrade when it was due. He continued to refuse the upgrade for at least the last 10 years.
SAA is probably correct when they say that safety was not compromised. By all accounts he was a model FO and operated well.
Document fraud is a crime and it is conceivable that there will be criminal charges.
I think almost all the SA airlines are/were vulnerable to this type of fraud due to the CAA's obsolete licensing system. I assume they are all now doing a thorough license audit.
His ALPA membership was immediately terminated and his actions have been condemned by his peers, colleagues and employer.

Yessir, pretty easy to doctor a S.A. license.