FRAUD SUMMARY - BANJUL, MAR - AUG 2009

UNCLAS BANJUL 000285

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR CA/FPP
DEPT ALSO PASS TO DHS
FRANKFURT PASS TO RCO PACKOWITZ

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KFRD CVIS CPAS CMGT ASEC GA
SUBJECT: FRAUD SUMMARY - BANJUL, MAR - AUG 2009


1. Embassy Banjul submits the following fraud report covering March
through August 2009. Post notes, however, that Conoff arrived only
in July 2009 and is just becoming familiar with consular work in The
Gambia.

a. COUNTRY CONDITIONS: The Gambia, the smallest country on the
mainland of Africa, relies heavily on tourism. The high tourist
season (November to April) is a time of greatly increased economic
activity since many jobs depending on the tourist trade are
seasonal. Due to the global economic downturn, the number of
tourists who visited The Gambia last year was down approximately
20%. There are fears that the upcoming season will be similarly
slow, leading to a greater desire to emigrate and seek employment
elsewhere. The Consular Section has already seen a surge in NIV
applications in August, where the number of interviews increased to
713 from 557 in 2008.

The downturn in tourism should not greatly affect ACS work. The
vast majority of tourists are European, since the hotels and beaches
here are relatively unknown and expensive to reach from the U.S.
The one event which does attract a number of Americans, the
bi-annual Roots Festival, was scheduled for earlier this year but
was postponed due to H1N1 flu fears and has yet to be rescheduled.
The Gambian government is making an effort to attract more American
tourism. Post recently issued two visas to officials going to a
series of tourism trade shows in the U.S.

The majority of American citizens in The Gambia are dual national
children with one or both parents in the U.S. As noted in the
previous fraud summary, poor economic conditions have led to
increasing requests from such citizens for financial assistance to
move to the U.S. Since they are dual nationals and have resided
here with extended family members for many years, they do not meet
the conditions necessary for repatriation loans. Yet many of these
young citizens or their family guardians are unaware of this and
believe that post will provide them with airline tickets to the U.S.


Social structures in The Gambia differ greatly from the U.S. and
complicate consular work. People who are well off are expected to
provide financial and other support for extended networks of family
members and friends. Few children grow up in what could be termed a
traditional western nuclear family and many are informally adopted
by relatives or friends who are financially more secure. Many NIV
applicants rely on sponsors who will pay for the trips, or their
tuition in student visa cases, and who are often termed "uncles"
although they may be more distant relatives or simply family
friends. The use of the term "brother" and "sister" to describe
other relatives or close friends also complicates visa work and
leads to many improperly filled out applications. In most cases,
diligent questioning by Conoff and the NIV staff resolve these
complexities, but they can sometimes provide avenues for fraud.
Sponsor-applicant relationships are difficult to verify and some
exist solely to facilitate travel.

b. NIV FRAUD: Most NIV fraud is not sophisticated and resolves
around fake documents. Post has seen fake job letters, bogus
invitations to conferences in the U.S. and forged academic records.
The use of forged bank statements seems to be on the rise. Post has
noticed a number of these in the last few months, especially in
support of student visa applications. The banks here have been
cooperative in verifying statements for us and collaboration between
them, the section, RSO, and the local police has led to the arrest
of two applicants who provided false statements. A third case is in
the works. It is hoped that when word gets out that providing
fraudulent bank statements can lead to arrest, the number of such
cases will decline.

Incidents of fraud are particularly high with group travel. In one
case, two Nigerians teaching in The Gambia posed as chaperones for
12 Gambians who were supposed to present a play at a UN youth
festival. The Gambians were all supposed to be high school
students, even though many were in their mid-twenties. When
questioned about the purpose of travel and the play they were
supposed to present, many were unable to state more than that they
were going to New York. Three applicants recently posed are youth
organizers for the opposition UDP party who were to accompany a
senior UDP official on a fund-raising trip to the U.S. Two of the
three spoke no English, only tribal languages and none were able to
describe their activities as youth organizers. A check in ADIS also
revealed that two of the three people who were given visas for a
similar trip last year are still in the U.S.

Another common problem is that people who qualify for visas and have
good travel records attempt to facilitate the migration of others to
the U.S. Marriage certificates are easy to obtain - a couple only
has to go the Muslim Kadi Court and declare that they are married -
coupled with the fact that a Muslim man can have up to four wives,
leads to cases in which a visa-holder marries simply to get the new
wife a visa. Others seek to travel with sons or other relatives who
have previous refusals.

Post also sees many applicants who wish to escort their American
citizen nieces, nephews or other relatives back to their parents in
the U.S. Some of these requests are legitimate, but others are
simply attempts to facilitate travel. In any case, almost all of
these applicants fail to overcome 214b. A common thread here is
that even if the document fraud or false statements were believed by
the Section, many of the applicants would still fail to overcome
214b.

c. IV FRAUD: Gambian IVs are processed in Dakar, but post does
assist Embassy Dakar in investigations for Gambian IV applicants.
Post also processes follow to join family members of refugees and
asylees.

d. DV FRAUD: Post does not issue DVs but does answer requests for
information concerning the lottery program.

e. ACS AND PASSPORT FRAUD: The ACS workload has been low since
Conoff came to post and no direct ACS fraud has been observed. Most
passport applicants are children born in the U.S. of Gambian
parents. Progression photos are used to confirm identity and PIERS
is always checked to confirm the parents' signatures. In CRIBA
cases, the unreliability of local documents has led as a last resort
to the use of DNA testing.

f. ADOPTION FRAUD: Post does not process adoption cases but does
assist Dakar in investigating the few adoption cases that come out
of The Gambia. Fraud exists in many of these cases, including,
unfortunately, the applications of two long-time Embassy Banjul LES
for SIVs. SIV status was granted, but at the request of Dakar, the
Section investigated adoption certificates which both employees had
submitted for derivative children. The certificates were found to
be fraudulent. Dakar has submitted an Advisory Opinion concerning
these cases and both posts are waiting for a response from
Washington before proceeding any further. Conoff has recently
written a new SOP for Banjul SIVs to hopefully eliminate such cases.
The Consular Section Chief will examine all documents before the
Ambassador makes his recommendation for SIV status. If fraud is
discovered, the Ambassador has the option of declining to recommend
the status.

g. USE OF DNA TESTING: Post continues to use DNA testing in
citizenship claims and Visas 92/93 cases. The panel physician
facilitates such requests. The fact that many children are
registered late, often right before an application begins, and that
authentic but factually-incorrect documents can be easily obtained,
leads to the frequent use of DNA testing. A minority of tests come
back negative, but in many cases the application is simply abandoned
when DNA testing is mentioned.

h. ASYLUM AND OTHER DHS BENEFITS: Post handles follow-to-join asylee
and refugee cases and sees many situations where beneficiaries who
are not actually offspring of the principal applicant are added to
the case. DNA testing weeds most of these out or causes them to
abandon their application.

i. ALIEN SMUGGLING, TRAFFICKING, ORGANIZED CRIME, TERRORIST TRAVEL:
Embassy Banjul has not experienced any organized alien smuggling,
trafficking, crime or terrorism rings to this date. Alien smuggling
is often attempted, but is done on a small scale. The two examples
cited above in the second paragraph on NIV Fraud being the largest
examples.

j. DS CRIMINAL FRAUD INVESTIGATIONS: Banjul is a small post in which
most investigations are handled within the Consular Section.
Nonetheless, the relationship between the Section and the RSO is
strong and RSO has facilitated, through the use of their police
contacts, the arrest of two NIV applicants who presented forged bank
statements. An RSO investigator also looked into two arrests made
at the Banjul airport. Local newspapers stated that the
perpetuators had forged a U.S. travel document but it turned out
that one had simply given the other his green card to try to enter
the U.S. FPP was apprised of the result of the case.

k. HOST COUNTRY PASSPORT, IDENTITY DOCUMENTS, AND CIVIL REGISTRY:
Marriage and birth certificates can be easily obtained at any time
through the use of sworn affidavits. Counterfeit documents are
rarely seen since fraud is easily done through the acquisition of
genuine but false documents. GOG has recently introduced a new
biometric national identification. The card is much more secure
than its laminated predecessor but lacks the holder's signature.
The card is part of an ambitious project entitled GAMBIS through
which GOG hopes to eventually issue biometric passports, driver's
licenses and other civil documents.

l. COORPERATION WITH HOST COUNTRY AUTHORITIES: Host country
cooperation has improved. Conoff has visited officials at the
Medical and Health Department who promised increased assistance in
verifying birth certificates. A visit to the Cadi Court, a Muslim
authority who handles the vast majority of marriage and divorce
certificates, has led them to provide us with a number of expedited
verifications. The local police have also been cooperative in
arresting applicants with false bank statements.

m. AREAS OF PARTICULAR CONCERN: visa fraud remains pervasive, but
is primarily low caliber and individual. Post is concerned that a
skilled human trafficker could take advantage of the easy with which
civil documents can be obtained here to commit visa fraud on a
larger, more organized scale.

n. STAFFING AND TRAINING: The FPU staff consists of Conoff and one
part-time LES. The LES is also the Section's visa clerk. None of
the staff in the Section have attended fraud training in the past
six months. The LES took a fraud training course in 2007. Conoff
has yet to take a fraud prevention course at FSI and hopes to do so
in the beginning of next year.

WELLS