FRAUD SUMMARY - ABUJA

UNCLAS ABUJA 000561 C O R R E C T E D C O P Y - CLASSIFICATIONS SIPDIS SENSITIVE DEPT FOR CA/FPP DEPT PASS TO KCC WILLIAMSBURG KY E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KFRD CVIS CPAS CMGT ASEC NI SUBJECT: FRAUD SUMMARY - ABUJA REF: 08 STATE 071476 ¶1. Following is post's semi-annual fraud reporting cable for the period September 2008 to February 2009, per reftel instructions. -------------- COUNTRY CONDITIONS -------------- ¶2. Background: Nigeria covers 356,700 sq miles and has a population of approximately 145 million. The major languages are English (official),Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa. The most recent (2007) per capita GDP is $1,500 USD, and the inflation rate (2008) is 8.5%. Approximately 54% of the population lives below the poverty line (on less than $1 per day). This high poverty rate coupled with population pressure creates a situation that drives out-migration. Large Nigerian expatriate communities in the United States present considerable familial and financial incentives to both visit and/or remain. ¶3. Nigeria has very limited internal controls on the issuance of all manner of civil documents, including international passports. This lack of control, coupled with the high level of bribery that permeates every level of society, creates an environment where potentially anything and everything is available for sale. With an enormous desire for visas as an escape route and documents that cannot be trusted, Abuja is inarguably a high-fraud post. The volume of applicants and rate of refusal has created a dynamic market for fraudulent applications and supporting documents that are, given local conditions, relatively sophisticated and highly adaptive to counter-measures. -------------- NIV FRAUD -------------- ¶4. The NIV Unit continues to see a wide variety of fraudulent documents submitted to create the impression of an established travel history as well as financial and familial stability. The largest and most common fraud is simple document fraud. Fake employment letters, bank statements, conference registrations and educational certificates are found on a daily, almost hourly basis during line work. Post continues to expand and update a library of signature samples and exemplars of commonly presented documents, particularly financial documents, for the purposes of verifications. Post continues to aggressively pursue a program for discovery and prosecution (arrest referral) of applicants holding fraudulent third country visas and fake entry stamps. By collecting and disseminating detection points and equipment (loops and UV lights) to line officers, post has discovered over 30 such cases of third country visa fraud since September 2008 alone. Working in tandem with RSO, over 25 of these cases have ended in the arrest of the applicants by the Special Fraud Unit of the Nigerian Police. All face prosecution under local fraud statutes. These fake third country visas run the gamut of counterfeiting tactics and print sophistication. In some of these cases the applicant was able to effect travel to the target country using the fraudulent document. Genuine civil and identity documents are relatively easy to acquire by fraudulent means here in Nigeria, but falsifying a record of foreign travel remains more difficult. As such, these TCN visas remain one of the most consistently reliable mechanisms for detecting fraudulent applicants and applications. Examples have included multiple instances and iterations of fake South African visas including fraudulent use of genuine South African foil blanks, a fact confirmed by the South African High Commission. Post has also seen seven confirmed cases of Schengen and UK counterfeiting, some wholly fabricated, some washed and photo-substituted, and all supported by falsified entry and exit stamps. Post has recently seen 2 cases of genuine Swiss foils which were part of a batch of stolen blanks, one of which had an altered visa foil number. Both included fake Swiss entry and exit stamps. Chinese, Australian, Indian, Malaysian, Turkish, Kenyan, Equatorial Guinean, and Brazilian fake visas have all also been discovered at post, and most of these on multiple occasions. In many cases, applicants admit in secondary interviews by FPU to having paid substantial sums, in one case several thousand U.S. dollars, for the visas. In other cases, applicants contend the visas were provided in exchange for favors, to be determined upon issuance. Post maintains a fairly extensive exemplar library of these finds, scanned and ready to share with other missions and agencies on request. Post continues to strengthen ties to other Missions in the community in order to verify suspicious documents. FR, IDENT and IAFIS continue to be invaluable assets for fraud prevention and detection work in Abuja. The introduction of biometric security measures has made it very difficult for applicants to run from prior applications, identities, and criminal histories. The NIV Unit has several cases each week where systems hits are sufficiently close to merit re-interview. Many such hits appear post-adjudication. These cases are processed after Advisory Opinion concurrence from CA/VO/A as material misrepresentations for a finding of 212(A)(6)(C)(i). To further discourage identity fraud, Abuja refers these identity fraud cases to the Special Fraud Unit of the Nigerian Police for arrest and prosecution. ¶5. R1 Fraud: With the implementation of the petition requirement for R1 religious worker visas, Post has seen a substantial drop in the number of R1 applications. Fraud in this category of visa continues to be a concern however, the decrease in R1 applications has reduced the sheer amount of fraud. ¶6. F1 Fraud: Student visas remain a popular target for those seeking entry to the U.S. Counterfeit West African Examination Council (WAEC) certificates continue to be a tactic for fraudulent students looking to establish their bona fides. The number of fakes has decreased, however, as WAEC has instituted an online means of score verification. Perhaps as a related result, post has noticed an increase in fraudulent transcripts from Nigerian polytechnics however, such fake transcripts are usually exposed by the low quality of the work and the applicant's lack of knowledge of the subject matter. This reporting period, post also saw a number of highly sophisticated fake SAT score reports. Several of these reports are difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish from legitimate SAT reports if not for the discrepancy between the fraudulent score and the applicant's complete lack of knowledge of the subject matter. At least one applicant admitted to the scam at reinterview and provided details as to individuals involved. This information was relayed to FPU Lagos and ARSO-I Lagos for further action due to the provenance of the fake reports in Lagos' Consular district. Post maintains a library of these finds and can forward exemplars on request. -------------- NIV VALIDATION STUDY -------------- ¶7. Post is currently working on two validation studies for A visas and visas issued through Class A and B Referrals. These are the first validation studies of these two categories since full NIV services commenced in Abuja in September of 2006. Post has compiled the information for these studies using the methodology standardized by CA/FPP and the reporting functions of CCD and the AdHoc system to generate the appropriate reports. The reports have been submitted to the ADIS/USVISIT system through the appropriate channels and post is now awaiting the results. -------------- ACS FRAUD -------------- ¶8. Financial scams - known as '419' scams, after the section of the Nigerian penal code relating to financial crime - continue to be an issue for ACS and a major burden to the correspondence unit at post. The ACS Unit receives a daily average of 13 inquiries through e-mail and telephone from Amcits as well as citizens from other countries who have been defrauded by Nigerians posing as romantic interests, Americans in distress, or lawyers trying to disburse a settlement or inheritance. Some of these Amcits have sent large sums of money to Nigeria. In such cases, post has little it can offer to victims by way of assistance beyond referring them to local authorities, U.S. consumer advocate groups, and advising victims to immediately halt communications and monetary transfers to the scammers. ¶9. The U.S. passport continues to be a document highly coveted by perpetrators of fraud. One recurring scenario is the first-time passport applicant who is in his/her late teens or early twenties. The applicant will provide a birth certificate for a child born in the U.S., as well as perhaps an infant passport, or the passport of the purported mother with the child endorsed in it. FPU performs field investigations to verify the identity of the applicant as that listed on the birth certificate where possible and appropriate. ¶10. Post also occasionally sees applications for Consular Reports of Birth Abroad (CRBA) for the children of male Amcits. Many of these individuals have divorced a previous wife and remarried a Nigerian, yet continue to reside in the U.S. Establishing paternity and proving the minimum of five years of physical presence in the U.S. can be difficult. In some cases the timing is very close and the sequence of events suspect. Questionable cases are referred to FPU for investigation. -------------- HOST COUNTRY DOCUMENTS -------------- ¶11. Post continues to find bio-substituted Nigerian passports on a regular basis. The relative ease with which Nigerians can acquire breeder documents means that even legitimate issuances of the latest Nigerian passports are vulnerable to fraud and misrepresentation. In a few cases, post has discovered photo- and bio-substituted passports that have apparently been renewed in the form of genuine issuances of the latest, and ostensibly most secure, Nigerian passport. Post has found 3 cases of the regular (green) pre-E series passport which contain biodata pages from the official (blue) passport. Officers on the line spot these with ease and these cases are confirmed fraudulent with the Nigerian Immigration Service and referred to SFU for prosecution. Post has found numerous cases in which the new E series passports have serious quality control issues, i.e. lack of laminate on the biodata page. Each case is referred for verification to the Nigerian Immigration Service and in cases involving legitimate quality control problems applicants are required to obtain a new E series passport. An updated dossier on E series detection points is available from post on request. As a result of these continuing problems with Nigerian passport security, Post continues to review all passports using the AssureID document checker. ¶12. Civil documents in Nigeria, by contrast, have essentially no security features. Marriage certificates vary widely in appearance; while they follow the same basic format, each local government authority has its own design. Marriage certificates and birth certificates are both filled out by hand in ball point pen, and are printed on plain white paper. Certificates of incorporation and tax clearances are similarly unreliable. These documents are incredibly easy to forge, and most agencies and government departments still maintain no centralized register for verifications. Banks are marginally more advanced in this regard, and post now has a full range of current authorized signatures for all of the major financial institutions. Controls and oversight in GON offices are such that for sufficient payment a person can obtain virtually any government document from the source. With very few exceptions, we consider most documents to be of very little value to the adjudicative process unless they are demonstrably fraudulent. -------------- STAFFING and TRAINING -------------- ¶13. The FPU consists of one part-time FSO Fraud Prevention Manager, who also works as NIV Line Officer, and recently, the addition of one full-time LES Consular Investigator. The new investigator has been an invaluable addition, particularly in conducting verifications and investigations, and developing local contacts in law enforcement. Post has recently developed an FPU Travel Plan for FY2009 to establish a schedule for investigations to be conducted by the Consular Investigator. The first six months of investigations have been completed and additional investigations scheduled as they arise. As recommended in the recent OIG report, post has conducted joint LES Consular Investigator and Consular Officer fraud field investigations. ¶14. The addition of new investigative resources to Consular Section Abuja has also helped our collective mission to clear Northern Nigerian investigative cases more quickly. In March, the Abuja Consular Investigator completed the requisite course at FSI for LES Consular Investigators, sponsored by CA/FPP at FSI. Recently, the investigator completed two investigative trips in tandem with the ACS Chief. Consular traffic and services continue to expand in Abuja, and Post has seen an increase in the number of requests for document verification from Lagos' FPU and DHS. The availability of in-house investigative staff permits post to maintain the integrity and efficiency of our processing efforts. The Abuja FPU is compiling a Consular Factbook as part of training for newly arrived officers. This book provides information on the cultural context crucial to effective NIV interviewing. This factbook is still in its infancy but additional chapters are planned. -------------- LIAISON and OUTREACH -------------- ¶15. Post has also made significant progress in establishing new working relationships with host government agencies and other missions in order to further our fraud prevention initiatives. Post continues to pursue an aggressive policy of referring confirmed cases of sophisticated identity and document fraud (particularly TCN visas and passports) to the local detachment of Nigeria's Special Fraud Unit (SFU),an agency of the national police force. While the SFU has been particularly responsive in apprehending fraudulent applicants, police have offered little information or evidence regarding these cases post-arrest. FPU Abuja has consistently asked SFU to provide records of arrest for all cases referred, and to report regularly on progress of these cases for prosecution. Despite over 20 on-site arrests since September, post has yet to confirm a single conviction. There appears little evidence that SFU has coordinated these investigations in aims of finding and prosecuting the purveyors of the counterfeit visas and passports. In a few cases, post has reason to suspect that despite definitive evidence of fraud, charges were never filed, the implication being that bribes had been paid to resolve the matter. SFU has made no efforts to raise the profile of these arrests in the media, further clouding the utility of arrest referrals is discouraging the use of fake visas and passports by the general population. In tandem with Abuja's RSO and the ARSO-I in Lagos, post continues to monitor and review the arrest program. On a very positive note, Post has noticed a reduction in the number of applicants who present fake TCN visas, a fact that Post has attributed to the inception of this cooperation with SFU. Post has one example in which an applicant applied for a Swiss visa using a passport containing a fake visa from Equatorial Guinea. The Swiss confiscated the passport and returned it to the MFA. This same applicant has now applied for a US visa using the same confiscated passport, evidenced by the Swiss stamp in the passport. The Swiss Embassy has confirmed the facts of this case. While this case does not involve the SFU, it raises concerns about the lack of seriousness with which the use of fraudulent documents in general is viewed by Nigerian authorities. Beyond local authorities, the FPM has made a series of courtesy calls to a variety of other diplomatic missions and host country offices to exchange information, detection points and exemplars on a bilateral basis. The Fraud Prevention Unit also organized a Consular Club of Abuja in order to encourage regular communication in the Consular community about issues of concern, particularly fraud. The FPU hosted the first meeting which hosted approximately 30 individuals from a variety of Missions and included a talk from the director of the SFU. This club is organized to be self-perpetuating, meeting every other month and hosted by a different Mission each time in order to involve the greatest number of interested Missions. ¶16. Post continues to work productively working collaboration with both the Lagos FPU and their affiliated ARSO-I. Abuja's FPU is now contributing information and exemplars to Lagos' FPU and ARSO-I to aid in ongoing investigations and begin new ones. ¶17. Beyond the local mission community, FPU Abuja disseminated a fraud report containing fraud finds that were new and different. This 'fraud file' shared detailed, image-based analyses of fraud cases with regional (primarily West African) posts and others that have large Nigerian expatriate applicant populations, such as London and Johannesburg. Post has not created such a report recently due to the reduction in fake TCN visas, and particularly the lack of new and different exemplars to share. SANDERS