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.

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COUNTRY CONDITIONS
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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.

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NIV FRAUD
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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.

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NIV VALIDATION STUDY
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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.


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ACS FRAUD
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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.


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HOST COUNTRY DOCUMENTS
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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.

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STAFFING and TRAINING
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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.

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LIAISON and OUTREACH
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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