QUARTERLY FRAUD SUMMARY - NAIROBI

UNCLAS NAIROBI 000817 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR AF/CA DEPT FOR CA/FPP PASS TO KCC PASS TO INL/HSTC POSTS FOR FRAUD PREVENTION MANAGERS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KFRD CVIS CPAS CMGT ASEC KCRM KE SUBJECT: QUARTERLY FRAUD SUMMARY - NAIROBI REF: A. NAIROBI 740, B. 05 STATE 205073, C. 05 NAIROBI 4523 ¶D. 05 NAIROBI 3627 ¶1. (U) Summary. The following report replies to Ref B reinstitution of the quarterly fraud report covering the current condition of consular fraud in Kenya, with specific reference to fraud trends in non-immigrant visa, immigrant visa, and diversity visa applications as well as cases of American Citizen Services, adoption, and passport fraud. Other areas covered include cooperation with the host government, and areas of particular concern. The review concludes with an overview of FPU staffing and training. End Summary. -------------- COUNTRY CONDITIONS -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Kenya is a high-fraud post with many ACS and visa cases involving alien smuggling through marriage and relationship fraud. Fraud is widely committed by applicants and runs the gamut from identity and relationship fraud to document falsification including passport, marriage and birth certificate, national identification card, and police certificates. The fraud situation is made more complex because genuine documents are also obtainable by fraudulent means. Fraud is driven by an intense pressure on applicants to leave Kenya and its roughly 60 percent unemployment rate. Further, a large percentage of relatively desperate third-country nationals enter Kenya's porous borders and contribute to the prevalence of fraud, which flourishes in Kenya due in part to rampant corruption throughout the government and law enforcement, combined with prosecution that remains relatively soft on identity fraud. Nonetheless, Post believes that the majority of fraud encountered is not sophisticated and usually relatively easy to intercept, particularly since the advent of fingerprinting. The only current evidence of a relatively sophisticated organized fraud ring has become apparent among applicants for Diversity Visas. Post has also detected some evidence of organized immigration fraud. Nairobi's aggressive anti-terrorism efforts include meeting regularly with local authorities about passport reliability, and working closely with other diplomatic missions and neighboring posts to identify fraud trends and to launch public outreach campaigns. -------------- NIV FRAUD -------------- ¶3. (U) Nairobi's NIV fraud is generally not organized and usually easily detectable. Post sees a very small number of employment-based petitions. Current fraud concerns for employment-based petitions are largely focused on Kenyans of South Asian-descent applying for L1 intra-company transfers to dubious or non-existent "subsidiaries" in the U.S. ¶4. (U) The most common fraud involves students applying to schools in the U.S. who supply fake Kenyan National Exam Council (KNEC) high school certificates and fraudulent bank documents in support of their applicants. The fraudulent certificates are generally of poor quality and easily obtainable; however, post has a good working relationship with the KNEC who directly supplies Post with confidential copies of high school certificates. Post's Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU) pays particular concern to cases in which there are indications of terrorist or criminal activity and investigates them carefully. ¶5. (U) In the past several months, Nairobi has moved away from relying on documentation produced by applicants in support of their financial status. Post recognizes that bank documents in Kenya are particularly fraud-prone and in some cases employees at the bank are complicit in the fraud. In the case of F1 applicants, students often purchase legitimate bank documents and make the claim that the owner of the statement is their aunt or uncle. When asked to return with these relatives to help establish a relationship, applicants either do not produce the relative or employ stand-ins who submit fake national identification cards, claiming that the bank statements are their own. These fraudulent national identification cards are easily recognizable. ¶6. (U) Nairobi has encountered a few instances of diplomatic note fraud committed by employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and other Government of Kenya (GoK) ministries on behalf of applicants posing as government officials. Most of these cases of fraud have been detected by Post's shrewd FSN NIV Supervisor based on inconsistencies in the application and not in the diplomatic notes. In most cases these genuine notes are produced on official paper with legitimate signatures and format, and it is only the lack of bona fides of applicants that stand out. We have raised our concerns regarding these cases with various offices in the GoK. ¶7. (U) Post recently interviewed an applicant claiming to be a Catholic nun who was particularly gifted at producing an alternate identity. The applicant came as a referral from the Vice President's office with genuine supporting documentation from the leadership of the Catholic Church in Kenya. Due to lingering post-interview concerns and the quick action of the FSN NIV Supervisor, post re-interviewed the applicant at which point her claim that she was a longtime Catholic nun recently living in Rome began to deteriorate. Follow-up calls to the Vice President's office and representatives of the Catholic Church helped us realize that these offices had also been duped. A January 7, 2006 article in local newspaper the Nation revealed that the applicant was arrested for attempting to defraud the wife of the GoK National Security Minister by spinning a similar story, only this time stating that she was a Catholic nun from the United States. -------------- IV FRAUD -------------- ¶8. (U) Nairobi's IV fraud is wholly relationship-based. Post has recently encountered a fraud ring among Eritrean applicants attempting to qualify for K1 visas. An astute IV FSN recognized similarities among Eritrean applicants' submissions, including copious pictures of petitioners and applicants in similar poses taken in similar locations across Nairobi. On further inspection, post determined that petitioners and beneficiaries shared unusually similar names across cases. It appears that the fraud ring involved in these applications assisted U.S. based- petitioners in fraudulently petitioning for their siblings as follows: Siblings from family A and family B contact the fraud ring. The ring then sets-up a fraudulent fianc relationship between Petitioner A and Sibling B and Petitioner B and Sibling A. Post recently returned at least 7 of these cases to DHS for revocation. Overall, Post has seen a marked decline in Eritrean and Ethiopian applications for immigrant and diversity visas as reported in Ref D. ¶9. (U) Nairobi continues to note marriage fraud perpetuated by sibling petitioners in the U.S. on behalf of Somali applicants filing for K1 visas. Generally, Somali cases are characterized by a lack of proof of relationship between applicants and petitioners. Often, the petitioner will have immigrated to the U.S. years before and returned once for a marriage which went wholly undocumented other than a marriage certificate usually issued from Kenya. While the volume of fraudulent Somali documents, including passports, is large, all official Somali documents are unverifiable because Somalia has not had a central government since 1991. The situation becomes more complicated by the current environment, which prohibits in- country consular investigations. For most Somali applicants their true identity remains unknown throughout the immigration process. Finally, Somalis tend to present a greater number of fraudulent Kenyan documents, such as police certificates. Post believes this is because many Somalis are in Kenya illegally and are concerned about risking deportation by declaring themselves to Kenyan officials. In some cases, Kenyan officials take advantage of Somali applicants and provide them with fraudulent documents. ¶10. (U) Post recently encountered a fingerprint hit for a Somali IR2 applicant, which revealed that she had applied separately under a different name and date of birth for refugee status, underlying the fraudulent and unverifiable nature of Somali identity documents. For cases in which Post suspects a sibling relationship may exist between the applicant and the petitioner, we request DNA testing after exhausting other means of verification. In a number of cases involving Somali applicants, post has been notified some weeks after our DNA request that seemingly healthy applicants have met unexplainable and untimely deaths. When post requests death certificates for the applicant, the petitioner either rarely follows-through, or provides unverifiable Somali death certificates. -------------- DV FRAUD -------------- ¶11. (SBU) Nairobi has identified and is currently investigating a large fraud ring or several fraud rings involved in the Diversity Visa process. These rings have found a way to identify single Diversity Visa winners from a certain region in Kenya. The modus operandi is to then set-up these principal applicants in sham marriages in an attempt to traffic their clients as dependent spouses. These relationships are difficult to detect since the rings procure legitimate marriage certificates for the applicants. Confidential informants have suggested that the ring or rings have representatives in Kenya and in the U.S. Post has encountered at least 20 such cases with telltale fraud indicators for the 2006 Diversity Visa season. An article in the February 6, 2006 edition of The Standard, a well-regarded Kenyan newspaper, noted that applicants pay exorbitant fees for Diversity Visa-related "services" provided by these rings. -------------- ACS and PASSPORT FRAUD -------------- ¶12. (U) Nairobi continues to encounter fraudulent cases of naturalized Amcits, often Somali-Americans, attempting to register children born in the region as their own. Other fraud originates with Somali-Americans seeking to renew passports for older children who do not resemble the biometric information on the passports they hold. This is because Amcit children are traditionally brought to Somalia by their parents at a young age and raised by relatives in Somalia. These same children return to the Embassy when they are teenagers or older requesting passport renewals. Their situations are particularly difficult as they lend themselves to imposter substitution, and even verification of the applicant's status as an Amcit is difficult due to a lack of any cultural context or photographic evidence of the child's growth over time. ¶13. (U) Temporary detention of Somali-Americans occurs with some frequency at the airport as Kenyan Immigration officials often carefully scrutinize these Amcits' travel documents due to a prevalence of fraud among travelers of Somali-descent. The well-trained airline officials and Kenyan Immigration officers at the airport regularly intercept Somali individuals carrying photo-subbed U.S. passports. Post recently encountered a Somali-American who came to the Embassy requesting certificates of birth abroad for his children. He presented a damaged 2004-issued U.S. passport in support of his request. Inspection of the passport revealed that the passport's laminate had been removed and a failed attempt had been made to photo- substitute the passport. -------------- ADOPTION FRAUD -------------- ¶14. (U) Post believes that due to the efforts of the GoK to maintain the legitimacy of the adoption process, we have seen very little adoption fraud involving Kenyan applicants. Nairobi has recently encountered ONE case in which a Kenyan orphanage appears to have been complicit in securing a student visa for ONE of their orphans for whom adoption proceedings were begun immediately after reaching the applicant's "host family" in the U.S, circumventing the legal adoption process. The fraud in this case was that the owner of the orphanage fraudulently obtained a birth certificate for the child with the orphanage owner listed as the mother. Post also received significant pressure from a member of Congress to reverse two earlier refusals and issue the case. Nairobi also processes adoptions from Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda. While fraud is minimal, post believes cases from Uganda may be more subject to fraud because the legal process for adoptions is less stringent than in Kenya. -------------- ASYLUM AND OTHER DHS BENEFITS -------------- ¶15. (U) The consular section does not conduct asylum and other DHS-related benefit interviews due to a DHS presence at post. -------------- COOPERATION WITH HOST GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES -------------- ¶16. (U) The GoK has exhibited good cooperation. Nairobi's FPU Investigations Assistant has a strong working relationship with Immigration and Police officials in the GoK, providing us with good access to individuals taken into custody. The GoK has also afforded us reasonable access to arrested Amcits. Police officers have proven responsive to our requests to have applicants arrested for fraud and misrepresentation. Finally, a Kenyan court recently gave a favorable verdict against a student applicant who submitted fraudulent financial documents. The student pled guilty and was sentenced to a fine of 100,000 Kenyan Shillings (about $1,400) or ONE year in jail. The court is also in the process of sentencing the sponsor who provided fraudulent bank statements in support of an F1 visa application. -------------- AREAS OF PARTICULAR CONCERN -------------- ¶17. (SBU) Post receives a significant volume of applicants who are third-country nationals living outside of Kenya or living in Kenya either as refuges or illegally. Given the general availability of fraudulent documents in Kenya, and significant external regional pressures including unemployment, poverty, famine, and conflict; post has identified particularly high rates of organized fraud among applicants who depart their home countries and come to Kenya to process their immigrant visas. Post has noted particularly high fraud rates among Somali, Ethiopian, and Eritrean nationals (see Ref A for additional information on Somali fraud concerns). Ugandan applicants tend to exhibit lower fraud rates, while Rwandans, Burundians, and nationals from Seychelles, Mauritius, and Comoros exhibit the lowest rates of organized fraud. ¶18. (SBU) Post has encountered a number of Kenyan nationals who have come forward with badly produced fake Lincoln visa foils asking whether the visas were legitimate for travel. One group of fraudsters travels around Nairobi in a car with fraudulent U.S. diplomatic plates describing themselves as an American Embassy mobile visa unit. They produce visas on a color printer for applicants from the car for a fee of 80,000 Kenyan Shillings or about $1,100. Others lie in wait for disheartened visa applicants departing the consular section and approach them with offers to procure a visa. ONE disqualified Diversity Visa applicant was followed and approached in a local bus at which point she gave her passport, documentation, and $755 to an unknown person promising a visa. Her documents were recovered through a joint operation between the A/RSO-I and the Kenyan Police. Still other hopeful Kenyans fall prey to e-mail scams, which promise U.S. visas for fees and often include documentation purporting to be from U.S. Government officials. Despite our ongoing efforts to inform the Kenyan public that visas are only available from the Embassy, Kenyan nationals continue to be defrauded in attempts to gain visas outside of normal channels. ¶19. (SBU) Nairobi's new A/RSO-I attached to the consular section has developed a strong relationship with GoK police and immigration officials. The A/RSO-I has increased Post's knowledge of human trafficking through Kenya. Airport authorities have intercepted Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, and Hong Kong nationals being smuggled through Nairobi as well as mala fide travelers from African nations. These imposters are smuggled on a variety of false travel documents, including U.S. passports. Post believes that corruption still exists at the airport and that some airline passengers continue to board planes having completely circumvented airport security. Of greater concern, suspect passengers in transit at the airport continue to walk out of the airport escorted by corrupt officials after being detained. Other Embassies have also alerted post of washed U.S. visas, which are usually used in an attempt to secure visas to EU countries, Mexico, and Canada. Post's DHS representatives and the A/RSO-I have developed a good working relationship with consular officers from other embassies through frequent meetings of an anti-fraud working group. Most recently the A/RSO-I and DHS have worked extensively with the Mexican Embassy to thwart a Tanzanian trafficking ring attempting to secure visas from the Mexican Embassy for illegal Chinese aliens destined for the U.S. -------------- STAFFING AND TRAINING -------------- ¶20. (U) The FPU unit includes ONE full-time FSN, Francis Marawoshe, and three back-up FSNs with collateral duties. The back-ups include Belinda Adika, the FSN NIV Supervisor, NIV Clerk Alice Kimuhu, and NIV Clerk Mercy Duo, and NIV Clerk Sophie Welime (all of which have collateral duties). Francis Marawoshe, Belinda Adika, and Mercy Duo have received fraud prevention training in Washington; however, Alice Kimuhu has not attended fraud-specific training in Washington. The current Fraud Prevention Manager with collateral duties is Etienne LeBailly, who received FPM training in December 2005. Post also has an A/RSO-I who has recently returned from fraud training at FSI. BELLAMY