R VISAS -- FRAUD IN THE NAME OF GOD

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MUMBAI 000367 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR CA/FPP AND CA/VO/F/P POSTS FOR FRAUD PREVENTION MANAGERS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: CVIS SOCI KCRM KFRD IN SUBJECT: R VISAS -- FRAUD IN THE NAME OF GOD REF: A) 08 CHENNAI 149, B) 07 CHENNAI 487, C) 07 KOLKATA 73, D) CHENNAI'S R-1 HANDBOOK 2008 ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY. Post Mumbai detects significant fraud among applicants for Religious Worker (R-1) visas. Mumbai refused nearly 52% of all applicants seeking R-1 religious worker visas in CY 2007. Following aggressive FPU investigations in Gujarat and Maharashtra States, CY2008 R-1 visa refusals to date have climbed to nearly 70%. Although visa fraud is not confined to any one religion, as Chennai and Kolkata noted in refs A and C, Sikhs and Tibetan refugees have the highest percentage of religious visa applicants with confirmed fraud. Post recorded negligible Hindu or Catholic-centric fraud. Using all tools at its disposal, the FPU thwarted fraudulent applicants purportedly from Sikh and Buddhist organizations from obtaining visas. Fraud occurred both in India and the United States with fraud involving primarily U.S. organizations the most difficult to detect. Current standard fraud prevention practices at Post, in cooperation with New Delhi, Kolkata and under the leadership of FPU Chennai, are highly effective in preventing fraud in a majority of R-1 visa cases. DHS and CA/FPP have provided valuable support in investigating real and bogus religious organizations in the United States. Technology tools, such as Watch Phrase and Text Search, have proved invaluable in combating fraud. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) In CY 2007, Post adjudicated 694 R-1 visas and refused over 52%. In CY 2008, Post has adjudicated 479 R-1 visas to date and refused over 69%. Of these, 30% were found permanently ineligible to enter the United States for willful misrepresentation of material facts. In addition, Post has refused 35% of the 52 R-2 visa applications in CY 2008. These numbers reflect a consistent trend in refusal percentages for the last five years. ¶3. (U) Post has a unique blend of religious applicant sources, including several Swaminarayan sects in Gujarat; major International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) temples in Mumbai and Gujarat; and Catholic and Christian missionaries in Mumbai and in Goa. Post's R-1/R-2 applicant pool is roughly one third Hindu, one third Sikh, with the rest split among Catholics, Buddhists and Muslims. -------------- SIKH PRIESTS OR INTENDING IMMIGRANTS �00A; -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Post refused over 90% of Sikh "priests" seeking R-1 visas, by far the most egregious fraud pattern at Post. (Note: 9 FAM 41.58 recognizes chiefly religious workers who have been ordained or who have taken sacred vows. A Sikh Granthi is not a priest and has not taken vows, but for all intents and purposes, his job is very "priestly." Granthis are the closest Sikhs have to people doing R-1 eligible work. There are more varieties of religious worker than the FAM has accounted for. End note.) In almost every case, applicants had no claim to residency within Post's consular district. These applicants usually came in threes and all were "Ragis" or Sikh religious singers; were born in North India; had passports issued in North India; and usually paid their visa processing fees in a northern Indian state. Examples include BMB 2007330904 0003/4/5 and BMB 2007337569 0002/3/4. ¶5. (U) In some cases, the fraud originated solely from the applicants themselves, without collusion from anyone outside of India (BMB2007341968 1/2/3 and 20072883430013-15; 2007 304 778 001/2). Checks with the alleged sponsoring organizations in the United States confirmed that the letters were fraudulent. The American organizations' management and trustees were uniformly angered by the fraud and wished to take action against the touts. In other cases, the Indian Sikh gurudwara itself or its officials aided and abetted fraudulent visa applicants. For example, two groups of 3 Sikhs claimed they were employed with Gurudwara Akali Dal or with Gurudwara Guru Singh Sabha, both in Mumbai. FPU field investigation trips to the two temples confirmed active collusion by a temple employee. ¶6. (U) The most difficult Sikh religious worker fraud to investigate usually involved collusion and fraud from both Indian and U.S. sides. Ruse calls to the Indian "employers" and MUMBAI 00000367 002 OF 004 the sponsoring religious organizations in the U.S. were answered by a friend or a visa "consultant" who was coached and prepared to provide supporting information. In one case a Lexis/Nexis search revealed that phone numbers submitted by 3 R1 visa applicants (BMB 2007331 221 9/10/11) were last registered to an insurance company. When questioned, one applicant confessed that a "visa consultant" provided false documents from the United States and India to support their cases. In other cases, (BMB 20073309100011, 20073309160009, 20073309170001),letters were forged on letterheads that closely resembled those of legitimate U.S. organizations. Visa touts in the United States may have worked in collusion with agents in India. Post conducted several field fraud investigations in Maharashtra State on October 12 and November 6, 2007. All 18 cases investigated were found to be fraudulent. The FPU spoke with representatives of 11 Sikh Gurudwaras from which applicants claimed to have come. Almost universally, gurudwara officials were shocked that someone had appropriated or forged their letterhead for mala fide purposes. In all cases, Post collected letterhead and signature exemplars for later use and encouraged organizations to call ahead when sending bona fide applicants. Post maintains and can share lists of gurudwaras in the district and the names of their legitimate employees. -------------- BAD MONK, FAKE MONK: BUDDHIST FRAUD -------------- ¶7. (SBU) Most Buddhist clergy seen in Mumbai are Tibetans. They hold refugee status in India and they cannot hold Indian citizenship. Because male Tibetans usually cannot work in India, monasteries are a welcome alternative to poverty. Not all monks are motivated by poverty, however. Embassy Kathmandu uncovered a "bad" monk who attempted to set up a human trafficking network from Nepal to the United States (ref D); a similar smaller case was recently exposed in Chennai (ref D). In India, many displaced Tibetan Buddhists reside in colonies established by the Indian government. Residents there frequently establish monasteries. Post has found that applicants from these Tibetan colonies are frequently unqualified either for R-1 or B1-B2 visas. ¶8. (SBU) Post refused visas to more than 67% of "Tibetan monks" who applied for R-1 visas in FY 2008. Fraud involving applicants masquerading as legitimate Buddhist monks originated from both the United States and India. The office of the Dalai Lama can verify the monks and FPU uses this resource routinely. The Dalai Lama's office is very responsive. ¶9. (SBU) In some cases, applicants colluded with sources outside of India (Case # BMB 20080080/002-006 and 20080181290007/0008/0009/0010). They had elaborate documents patterned on legitimate documents previously sent from the United States. Biometrics showed one applicant was refused previously in New Delhi when he applied a year ago misrepresenting that he worked in a different monastery. The U.S. organizations subsequently denied inviting the applicants to work in the United States. The fake letterheads and visa application forms listed false phone numbers to circumvent a line of inquiry. A reverse lookup of the telephone numbers for the Indian monasteries and a text search on their addresses revealed that separate applicants had used the same address and phone numbers for their Indian monasteries. ¶10. (SBU) The most complex cases involved fraud originating in the United States. In some cases, investigation of the U.S. sponsor revealed the alleged temple phone number was a residence or a business establishment (BMB 200803118410, 20083118411, 20083118412 20080311851.) ADIS records showed previous applicants issued visas to go to same organization had extensive overstays, both on B1 and R1 status. Moreover, the sponsoring organization had no verifiable track record of being a credible outfit on any public database (BMB 200733752600 10/11/12/13). Lexis/Nexis showed a physical address that belonged to unrelated people, while Dun and Bradstreet records had no record of the name or address or phone number of the organizations. Websites provided by the inviting organizations led to "free park" pages, which had nothing to do with an independent organization. MUMBAI 00000367 003 OF 004 -------------- HINDU SECTS AND SWAMIS -------------- ¶11. (SBU) Recent CA guidance clarified that Hindu temple carvers and architects are considered religious workers (ref D). Temple concrete pourers and temple plasterers (including craftsmen who sculpt in plaster) are not. Temple cooks, or pachakahas, prepare food in Hindu temples. They are Brahmins, and they cook offerings for the gods. They typically inherit their jobs from their fathers who did it before them. They are not ordained, and they do not take sanctified vows. But their food for the gods is an essential element of worship. Their work is part of habitual religious practice. Their eligibility for the R1 is currently valid (ref D). Consular officers at post do, however, often experience difficulty assessing these workers' bona fides. ¶12. (U) In October 2007, Post conducted a field investigation in the state of Gujarat to catalogue and verify the existence of various temples of the Swami Narayan sect of Hinduism. Before the investigation, Post contacted trustees of the Yogi Divine Society in Sokhada, Gujarat and the Swaminarayan temple organization headquartered in Kalupur and Vadtal, Gujarat State, to confirm procedures for verifying bona fide applicants. A large and legitimate branch of ISKCON also operates out of Mumbai. ¶13. (SBU) Post maintains one nominally Hindu organization in CCD's watchphrase tool: the cunning and adaptive Gaudiya Vaisnava Society (GVS),also known as the Sri Ram Temple, in Milwaukee, WI. Post Kolkata had previously conducted an investigation of the organization in West Bengal and uncovered a major fraudulent operation (ref C). While in 2007 all Posts in India issued visas to R-1 and R-2 applicants from this organization, many recent applicants were refused thanks to Kolkata's investigation and DHS/ICE reports. -------------- CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS -------------- ¶14. (U) Post's Christian applicants came in one of two varieties: priests from Catholic parishes across the district and Protestants. Catholics constitute over 90% of R-1 applicants and mainly come from the city of Mumbai and the neighboring state of Goa. Their supporting documents were always inclusive and the strict hierarchy of the church made impersonation difficult and imposters rare. Well established procedures and paperwork accompany applicants. Post's excellent relations with Catholic parishes in western India helped to quickly clarify any questions that occasionally arose in a R-1 Catholic applicant's case. Post encountered no Catholic-centric fraud in CY 2007. -------------- TOOLS OF THE TRADE -------------- ¶15. (SBU) Post uses comprehensive methods to verify the bona fides of U.S. religious organizations and the signatures on invitation letters. These include PIERS records to compare American passport application signatures with invitation letter signatures, and using LexisNexis to verify the existence and whereabouts of American-based sponsors. The verification of India-based organizations, supporting websites, and all documents purporting to support a religious application are a critical part of all R-1 and R-2 adjudications. ¶16. (SBU) CA's Office of Fraud Prevention Programs (FPP) should be lauded for its contribution towards fighting religious worker visa fraud at Post Mumbai. CA/FPP has given Posts enhanced technological tools that aid fraud busting. For example, CCD tools such as Watch Phrase Management and Text Search have been extraordinarily valuable in exposing religious worker fraud patterns at Post. Access to databases such as Lexis/Nexis has MUMBAI 00000367 004 OF 004 been critical in evaluating religious organizations in the U.S. that sponsor R-1 applicants. Several successful examples cited in the body of this cable were direct outcomes from use of these technologies. CA/FPP has played a key role in investigating invitations from the United States. In many instances, it has determined them to be fraudulent. Most importantly, the CA/FPP has been a valuable resource to detect and deter visa fraud and to synergize fraud prevention activities. Weaving investigative findings from different databases and the internet with data mined from the CCD, and cross referencing that with ADIS records and telephone verifications, CA/FPP's Post liaison synthesized data from multiple sources into comprehensive reports that Post can act upon. Post could not have uncovered the full extent of the R-1 fraud pattern at Post without the innovative stateside investigations by CA/FPP. ¶17. (SBU) COMMENT: Although religious visas constitute a small fraction of the overall applications received at Post Mumbai, the R visa category constitutes the highest percentage of fraudulent applicants. The FPU in Mumbai, in collaboration with other FPUs in India and CA/FPP, will continue to pay particular attention to R-1 applicants and use the excellent resources and tools available and the team's experience to combat future religious visa fraud. END COMMENT. FOLMSBEEPA