DAKAR FRAUD SUMMARY - FOURTH QUARTER FY2006

UNCLAS DAKAR 002661 SIPDIS DEPT FOR CA/FPP DEPT PASS TO KCC PARIS FOR DHS/ICE ECOWAS POSTS FOR FRAUD PREVENTION MANAGERS SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: CVIS KFRD CPAS CMGT ASEC KSTC SG SUBJECT: DAKAR FRAUD SUMMARY - FOURTH QUARTER FY2006 REF: A) 05 STATE 205073 B) FREETOWN 666 C) DAKAR 1780 D) DAKAR 1802 ¶1. Following is Embassy Dakar's quarterly fraud reporting cable for the fourth quarter (July-September) of FY2006. Responses are keyed to Reftel A. 2.A. COUNTRY CONDITIONS: No change since last quarterly report. ¶B. NON-IMMIGRANT (NIV) FRAUD: No change since last quarterly report. ¶C. IMMIGRANT VISA (IV) FRAUD: In this quarter, Post returned 37 petitions to USCIS for review with the recommendation that they be revoked. ¶D. DV FRAUD: Thirty percent of the cases that the Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU) resolved in fiscal year 2006 were fraudulent. Eighty percent of the fraudulent cases involved fake baccalaureate certificates. On September 30, post had 22 pending DV2006 cases in the FPU that were suspended. ¶E. ACS AND PASSPORT FRAUD: Post denied two American passports because of false claims to U.S. citizenship. In one case, the applicant, age 29, was applying for his first passport and was unable to provide any evidence of identity other than a birth certificate. The second case involved an applicant who was previously denied in 2005 as an imposter. The applicant still could not present any evidence of his identity. ¶F. ADOPTION FRAUD: During this quarter, Post requested that Embassy Freetown conduct 7 field investigations to confirm the orphan status of children adopted in Sierra Leone. Field investigations continue to reveal widespread adoption fraud in Sierra Leone. In one particularly disturbing case (Reftel B),the birth mother, who allegedly died of a miscarriage, was alive and had been attempting to regain custody of her son. Post is also seeing an increase in K-1 female beneficiaries who claim adopted children as derivatives. In many cases the derivatives are much older than the K-1 applicants. ¶G. ASYLUM AND OTHER DHS BENEFITS FRAUD: In the past, Senegalese immigration authorities cooperated with Post whenever passengers with suspicious U.S. Refugee Travel Documents (I-571) and Authorization for Parole of an Alien into the United States (I-512L) tried to board a South African Airways flight to the U.S. (Reftels C and D). Unfortunately, the FPU has not received any suspicious documents from Senegalese immigration authorities since the consular section found the Deputy Director of the Special Airport Police Agency's three children ineligible for nonimmigrant visas on 13 September 2006. FPM is following up with airport authorities to encourage continued cooperation. ¶H. COOPERATION WITH HOST GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES: See paragraph G. ¶I. AREA OF PARTICULAR CONCERN: Significant numbers of Senegalese continue to migrate illegally to Spain. According to media reports, parents are sending their child between 12 and 17 years on fishing boats to the Canary Islands because it is more difficult for Spain to repatriate unaccompanied minors. An Amcit told Conoff that he obtained a genuine, but falsely issued Senegalese entry stamp from a Senegalese immigration official at the airport for CFA 10,000 (USD 20). This confirms how easy it is for people to obtain genuine, but falsely issued entry and exit stamps for Senegal. ¶J. STAFFING AND TRAINING: No changes since last quarterly report.