FRAUD SUMMARY - SANA'A

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 SANAA 001729 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR CA/FPP, DS/CR/OCI, NEA/ARP DHS FOR CIS/FDNS POSTS FOR FRAUD PREVENTION MANAGERS RIYADH FOR DHS/ICE ATTACHE ATHENS FOR DHS/CIS OIC CAIRO FOR RCO CHRISTOPHER ROWAN E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KFRD CVIS CPAS CMGT ASEC YM SUBJECT: FRAUD SUMMARY - SANA'A REF: A)SANAA 583 B)Turnbull/Hooshangi/Carothers/Sexton E-Mail 08/24/09 SANAA 00001729 001.2 OF 005 ¶1. COUNTRY CONDITIONS: Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East, with an illiteracy rate of over 50% and unemployment rates over 30%. Yemen is also home to upwards of 500,000 - 600,000 refugees, mostly of Somali origin. Due to lack of opportunities in Yemen, the impetus for and volume of fraud witnessed at post is high. Unfortunately, legitimate civil documents are easily obtained based on falsely-provided information and therefore often must be discounted. Fraud prevention efforts rely heavily on scientific testing, trend analysis, and vigorous investigations. ¶2. NIV FRAUD: NIV fraud makes up less than 5% of Post's fraud efforts, as cases suspected of even minor fraud are refused under 214(b). During this six-month period, Post has adjudicated 2268 NIV cases, most of which are adjudicated by our half-time NIV officer. One unique aspect of NIVs in Yemen is the frequent refusal of applicants seeking B1/B2 visas, who are in possession of Diplomatic or Official Yemeni passports. Low salaries and a history of Yemeni officials overstaying their visas often results in an inability to overcome a 214(b) inadmissibility finding. In Yemen, issuance of diplomatic passports is not limited to diplomatic officials and their immediate families. Due to the large turnover in officers and understaffing of the FPU, Post did not perform a validation study during this reporting period. We are now in the process of conducting validation studies for referrals. ¶3. IV FRAUD: Due to the pervasive fraud environment, all Immigrant Visa (IV) cases are considered fraudulent until proven otherwise. Interviews are complex, due not only to fraud, but also to the illiteracy and poor education of applicants. "I don't know" and "I don't understand" are common responses from the beneficiary to basic questions about her family. Post, therefore, allows petitioners to participate in interviews, as the petitioner is often the only one able to locate and obtain documents, complete paperwork, and provide information we would normally expect the beneficiary to be able to articulate in the interview. This increases the difficulty of fraud detection, as officers are forced to rely on a series of patterns and interviewing experience in order to detect fraud successfully. Post estimates that 1686, or two-thirds, of the 2542 IV cases adjudicated during the reporting period were referred directly to Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU). Approximately 226 of these were referred for phone investigations and 1395 for DNA testing. Some cases also require both DNA and a phone investigation. Since phone numbers and names are provided by the petitioner and beneficiary for phone investigations, Post waits several months before conducting a phone investigation. As a result, even those who had been coached on what to say often revert to the truth, having forgotten the story they had been coached to tell. Step-child fraud is increasing at Post (see para 3 of reftel A). In this growing trend, the petitioner immigrated as unmarried when he was in fact married and the "step-children" are actually his children. When DNA testing reveals that the children are biological and not step-children, the applicants must then obtain new, correct identification documents in order to immigrate. It is both costly and timely to obtain all new civil documents, applications, affidavits of support, and all other documents, as all documents were issued based on the false name provided for the "step-children." Furthermore, A/RSO-I simultaneously coordinates with local authorities to prosecute any applicant who returns to the Consular Section in possession of two sets of ROYG-issued identification documents in different names. Recently, however, Post has noticed a twist in step-child fraud that represents a new trend. The petitioner immigrated as unmarried, and is now altering the date of marriage and dates of birth of the children, since he was married at the time of immigration. Falsification of the children's ages is necessary since children are rarely born out of wedlock in Yemen. Post has caught on to this fraud by noticing a recent spike in children who look much older than claimed during their interviews. Post combats this type of fraud through bone-age testing and again requiring the petitioner to acquire new, correct identification documents for his children. In cases where the petitioner is a Legal Permanent Resident (LPR), SANAA 00001729 002.2 OF 005 however, A/RSO-I is able to pursue the revocation of his status since his being married would have precluded him from an F-2B visa. During the reporting period, Post received the results for approximately 120 bone age tests indicating under reporting of age in at least 85% of the cases. In CR/IR cases at Post, it is very unusual to see an American petitioner who is not of Yemeni origin. However, in these rare cases, the Yemeni father has often overstayed on a B1/B2 visa and adjusted status by marrying a non-Yemeni American. He then convinces his new wife to petition for his children from a "previous" marriage, when in fact the first wife is still alive in Yemen and is still married to him. A/RSO-I refers these cases to U.S.-based field agents who can pursue deportation of the Yemeni father, and notify American authorities of a polygamous marriage. Polygamous marriages are extremely common in Yemen (see para 3 of reftel A). In cases with more than one wife listed, polygamy is suspected, even if the petition claims previous marriages had terminated in divorce or death. Yemenis frequently try to abuse the divorce system to cover up polygamous marriages by claiming they have divorced previous spouses when they are only separated. Shari'a law, upon which Yemeni law is based, requires three decrees for a divorce to become final and legal. Post only accepts the final, third decree as evidence of divorce. FPU investigations routinely reveal that claimed divorces were never finalized or that previous spouses are not deceased. Post remains skeptical of all cases involving children over the age of 20 who claim to be single. According to a recent sociological study, approximately 80% of Yemeni men and women marry by the age of 20, and nearly 50% by the age of 15. Post sees many Yemeni males in their late 20s and 30s who claim to be unmarried, but subsequent phone investigations often reveal they have wives and children. For F-1s, they are simply requested to provide proof of their marriage and are transferred to F-3s; IR-2s are similarly transferred to F-1s. F-2s and those who refuse to confess have their cases sent to DHS with the recommendation that they be revoked. K-Visa: As per para 3 of reftel A, K-1 visas remain suspicious due to Yemeni cultural norms that would prevent an unmarried woman from traveling to meet a fianc. Phone investigations are conducted for all K-1 visas, due to the suspicion that the beneficiary and petitioner are in fact already married and therefore ineligible for the K-1 visa. In over 90% of these cases, phone investigations reveal that the petitioner and beneficiary are already married, resulting in requests for revocation. Some phone investigations also result in the discovery that the beneficiary is not the only current wife of the petitioner. Investigation Procedures: Country security conditions still prevent FPU from performing field investigations. We rely almost exclusively on phone investigations to combat the aforementioned types of fraud. FPU has been remarkably successful in finding "deceased" spouses and getting full confessions from them on the phone. Phone investigations have also been successful in combating polygamy-related fraud as the second wife will readily admit to her status outside the interview window. Of the 85 phone investigations performed during the reporting period, 64 uncovered material fraud. In only about 10-15% of phone investigations were we unable to obtain information due to uncooperative or suspicious relatives. Post's ARSO-I obtains several confessions each month from applicants and petitioners during DNA sampling in addition to information voluntarily provided by the petitioner when scheduling DNA testing. Post's FPU remains severely overburdened and understaffed. The EFM Fraud Prevention Supervisor position has remained unfilled since January 2009, and ARSO-I has been acting as FPM in addition to his other duties. Two LE Staff are responsible for all phone investigations and work extra hours to perform DNA sampling. In addition to the aforementioned duties, FPU performs approximately 14 document, video and picture analyses, and translations per day. ¶4. DV FRAUD: DV cases continue to be extremely difficult to evaluate in Yemen due to the large number of Somali applicants. Neither Post nor AmEmb Addis have the capacity to verify any Somali documents. Therefore there is no concrete way to determine the bona-fides of Somali DV applicants who attempt to qualify based on education. SANAA 00001729 003.3 OF 005 Officers attempt to interview such applicants stringently, but ultimately the burden of proof remains on the applicants. It is equally challenging to evaluate most Yemenis who attempt to qualify based on work experience, since documents can be easily obtained. Post continues to train its new officers on the use of O*Net to improve its interviewing capacity. The use of LE Staff field expertise in medicine has also been vital to combating DV fraud, as Post has seen several applicants from this field. On the other hand, the bona-fides of Yemeni applicants who attempt to qualify based on education are easily verified via contacts in the ROYG Ministry of Education and at several universities. During the reporting period, 7 of 30 Yemeni educational documents submitted in DV cases that were sent for review turned out fraudulent. Yemeni education standards are significantly lower than those of the United States. 50% is a passing grade for Yemeni high school graduates. Post is attempting to recalibrate its standards to meet the FAM requirement that all DV applicants be "able to apply for university in the US." Since Yemeni universities require at a minimum a 70% passing grade from high school, Post recently submitted an Advisory Opinion (ref B) requesting permission from CA to change its requirement from 50% to 70% to be a passing high school grade, in order to align with both Yemeni and U.S. university standards. (e) ACS AND PASSPORT FRAUD: In many IV cases, the petitioner may have sufficient physical presence in the U.S. to transmit U.S. citizenship to the beneficiary of the IV petition. Of the 983 Consular Reports of Birth Abroad (CRBA) applicants interviewed during the reporting period, Post estimates that 250 were referrals from IV. Post has worked hard to streamline the communication between these two sections and now each routinely refers to the other's notes. This has greatly helped our fraud prevention procedures as the fraud from IV carries over to ACS once the case is referred. The most common types of fraud in first time CRBA applications are relationship related. Since many cases are refused simply for lack of physical presence documentation, Post rarely has cause to pursue document-fraud as it relates to physical presence. However, as our applicant pool is uneducated and poor, they often do not possess convincing proof of relationships. DNA testing was used in approximately 96 such cases to ensure that only the children of Amcits are obtaining passport benefits. More recently, we are seeing falsification of dates of birth for children in order to ensure sufficient physical presence to transmit citizenship. Post combats this fraud through bone age testing. In passport renewals, the first passport contains a photo of an infant that is not easily matched to the young adult in front of the officer. In these cases, Post requests photos showing the applicant at different ages, or requests DNA testing to prove the relationship with the parents. ¶6. ADOPTION FRAUD: Yemeni law has no provisions for legal adoption, yet Post continues to witness attempts to petition for "adopted" children in Yemen. These cases are returned to USCIS for revocation since there is no petition-able relationship. During the reporting period Post noted 4-5 such cases. ¶7. USE OF DNA TESTING: Post utilizes a Cellmark lab in Sana'a to process all DNA requests. All DNA tests conducted by Cellmark tests siblings and compare husband and wife. DNA testing is an outstanding deterrent to fraud. Half of Post's applicants for DNA testing fail to complete the required testing, preferring not to spend money on a test that will only confirm fraud. As mentioned above, FPU handles many Post-initiated requests for DNA testing. In addition, FPU continues to receive requests from DHS for DNA testing prior to the forwarding of some cases to Post. DHS currently requests DNA testing for only selected family members in each case. Post, however, requires that all family members submit to DNA testing. As a result, Post has received DNA results showing that "parents" are siblings, "children" are grandchildren, "siblings" are not related to each other, and "step-children" are children. Post's more-stringent DNA testing requirement has revealed a much larger fraud picture. In this six-month period, the FPU conducted DNA testing on SANAA 00001729 004.2 OF 005 approximately 1400 people and has dramatically streamlined the overall process. ¶8. ASYLUM AND OTHER DHS BENEFIT FRAUD: There are no new developments this reporting period. ¶9. ALIEN SMUGGLING, TRAFFICKING, ORGANIZED CRIME, TERRORIST TRAVEL: Post currently does not have any open cases related to these topics. Yemen's borders and coastline are porous and poorly monitored, allowing regular movement from both sea and land. Additionally, Yemen is coping with the continual illegal immigration of various nationalities from the Horn of Africa region and has, as of yet, been unable to stem the flow. ¶10. DS CRIMINAL FRAUD INVESTIGATIONS: An A/RSO-I has been assigned to the Consular Section since December 2008. The A/RSO-I reports directly to the Consular Chief for all matters concerning consular investigations and to the RSO for all security issues. The A/RSO-I is currently collocated with the Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU) and has been serving as the acting Fraud Prevention Manager (FPM) since January 2009. A Vice Consul will move into the FPM role on October ¶1. The local government has shown interest in prosecuting only those document fraud cases which involve an imposter or someone with Yemeni identification documents in two different names. Fraudulently-obtained documents or legitimately-issued documents obtained with incorrect information are of no concern to the local authorities. The working relationship is improving between the A/RSO-I and local law enforcement. Post is now able to get lead requests answered in a timely fashion. The A/RSO-I is the RSO and Consular Section's liaison with other law enforcement entities at Post and assists with various inter-agency investigations of mutual interest. The ARSO-I assists in the entering of fraud related lookouts and watch phrases into the CCD and assists Consular Officers with conducting criminal records checks for visa and passport applicants. ¶11. HOST COUNTRY PASSPORT, IDENTITY DOCUMENTS, AND CIVIL REGISTRY: Both fraudulent and legally-issued Yemeni civil documents are easily attainable for a price. The Civil Status Authority (CSA) requires no evidence of an event to issue civil documents, and Yemenis rarely document births, deaths, marriages, or divorces when they happen. Documents are procured only later when they are needed for a bureaucratic procedure. A complete absence of record-keeping and rampant corruption within the CSA and court system mean that even legitimately-issued documents often reflect fraudulent information or record events that never occurred. Given Post's serious security concerns and rampant relationship fraud with immigrant visas, Yemen's weak documentation is a significant border-security vulnerability. The Immigration and Passport Authority is responsible for the issuance of Yemeni Machine Readable Passports (MRP). They encounter the same problems as the CSA regarding records management and fraud prevention. Given that the breeder documents needed to obtain a passport are readily available for a price, Yemeni passports can easily be obtained with false bio-data. ¶12. COOPERATION WITH HOST GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES: FPU has a very strong working relationship with ROYG Civil Status Authority (CSA) officials. The CSA continues to share information and assist in document validations and analysis of fraud patterns at Post. This is a direct result of the continued effort on the part of the FPU FSNs. ¶13. AREAS OF PARTICULAR CONCERN: A more troubling version of IV step-child fraud is on the rise, raising concerns at Post about alien smuggling. Post is seeing an increase in petitions for IR-2 and F33 step-children, when in reality there is no step-parent/step-child relationship. In these cases, the "step-father" petitions for "step-children" after the "biological mother" is supposedly deceased. However, given the easily-obtained, legitimate civil documents which contain false information, our applicants can acquire "step-children" with little cost and effort, when in fact no such relationship exists. SANAA 00001729 005.2 OF 005 Post is not certain how the petitioner is connected to these beneficiary "step-children," nor do we know who these children are. DNA results over the years confirm that Yemenis have no qualms petitioning for relatives such as cousins, nieces and nephews, and grandchildren as "children," believing that DNA will sufficiently confirm a familial relationship, yet not reveal the specific nature of the non-petitionable relationship that actually exists. Therefore, we are certain that there is no familial relationship-otherwise these beneficiaries would have been listed as "children" and not as "step-children." Furthermore, we seriously doubt the story of the deceased "mother" that the petitioner supposedly had married. We also suspect that the identity of the deceased "mother" has been altered, and therefore phone investigations would not be effective, as we would clearly be given away by using the fake name of both the mother and the child in question. We believe these children are from the same town or village as the petitioner, and that the petitioner is smuggling the beneficiary children to the U.S. We also suspect that the true parents are seeking NIVs with the intention of settling permanently in the U.S. with their children who were naturalized at the port of entry as U.S. citizens, thanks to the petitioner who smuggled them in. We would have no way of associating the real parents with their now U.S. citizen children during NIV interviews, as the children would most likely have been naturalized under the same false identities they used while being smuggled. Since DNA testing and phone investigations are not applicable in these situations and document integrity is so poor, Post has no way of determining who these children are and no method for refusing these highly-suspect cases. Post has sent an Advisory Opinion to the Department asking for guidance since Post currently does not know how legally to refuse to issue these cases. A disturbing, rising trend in ACS is criminal fraud in repatriation cases. During the reporting period, every one of the 18 Amcits for whom Post has begun repatriation cases involved breaking a law, whether Yemeni or U.S., and in several cases there was a criminal nexus. Even when asked directly about criminal charges, many of these applicants lie to the consular officers, denying that such charges exist. In these six months, Post has witnessed links to kidnapping, terrorism, child abuse, forced marriage of a minor child, armed robbery, assault, and murder. CONOFFs work closely with contacts in LEGATT and RSO to investigate these situations fully, but the exceptional difficulty they present continues to strain the Section. ¶14. STAFFING AND TRAINING: Currently the A/RSO-I is waiting for funding for an LES-I position. This is a critical asset that is required since the A/RSO-I position was not initially coded for language and every interview requires an FPU LES to assist. A language designation has since been added to the A/RSO-I position, but given the immense fraud portfolio and other issues that dovetail with the A/RSO-I portfolio, an LES-I position is greatly needed. Post is also trying to obtain funding for an additional Fraud Analyst LE Staff position to assist with the overwhelming workload. ¶15. The POC for this cable is Consular Section Chief Kim Shaw, who can be reached at 967-1-755-2154 or at shawk@state.gov. SECHE