Cablegate: Quarterly Fraud Summary - Nairobi

VZCZCXYZ0002
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHNR #3733/01 2370707
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 250707Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY NAIROBI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3911
INFO RUEHPNH/NVC PORTSMOUTH 0269
RUEHAE/AMEMBASSY ASMARA 4826
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA 8739
RUEHLGB/AMEMBASSY KIGALI 4490
RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA 1781

UNCLAS NAIROBI 003733

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR AF/CA
DEPT FOR CA/FPP
PASS TO KCC
PASS TO INL/HSTC
POSTS FOR FRAUD PREVENTION MANAGERS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KFRD CVIS CPAS CMGT ASEC KCRM KE
SUBJECT: QUARTERLY FRAUD SUMMARY - NAIROBI

REF: A. NAIROBI 2782, B. NAIROBI 2509, C. NAIROBI 1650, D. NAIROBI

817, E. NAIROBI 740, F. 05 STATE 205073, G. 05 NAIROBI 4523, H. 05
NAIROBI 3627

1. (U) Summary. The following report replies to Ref F reinstitution
of the quarterly fraud report covering the current condition of
consular fraud in Kenya, with specific reference to fraud trends in
non-immigrant visa, immigrant visa, and diversity visa applications
as well as cases of American Citizen Services, adoption, and
passport fraud. Other areas covered include cooperation with the
host government, and areas of particular concern. The review
concludes with an overview of FPU staffing and training. End
Summary.

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COUNTRY CONDITIONS
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2. (SBU) Post's fraud environment remains complicated, as outlined
in Ref D. However, Nairobi has made great strides towards addressing
organized fraud and significant fraud trends as described in Ref B
and C. Post continues to implement anti-fraud measures to combat IV
and DV fraud, and in the busy season for NIV student applicants,
Nairobi has successfully used the CCD text search function to combat
F1 sponsorship fraud.

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NIV FRAUD - STUDENT VISA FRAUD AND TEXT SEARCHES
--------------------------------------------- ---

3. (U) Nairobi's most common fraud involves students applying to
schools in the U.S. who supply fake Kenyan National Exam Council
(KNEC) high school certificates and fraudulent bank documents in
support of their applications. While in the past, fraudulent KNEC
certificates have been of poor quality, post has recently detected
washed certificates with grades that have been expertly "revised"
by a local counterfeiter. Nairobi maintains a good working
relationship with the KNEC who directly supplies Post with
confidential copies of high school certificates, which has so far

SIPDIS
proved to be our best failsafe.

4. (U) In the past several months, Nairobi has moved away from
relying on documentation produced by applicants in support of their
financial status. Post recognizes that many prospective students
cannot pay for even the first year of university in the U.S, and
that bank documents in Kenya are particularly prone to fraud. F1
applicants often purchase legitimate bank documents and make the
claim that the owner of the statement is their aunt or uncle. When
asked to return with these relatives to help establish a
relationship, applicants either do not produce the relative or
employ stand-ins who submit fake national identification cards,
claiming that the bank statements are their own.

5. (SBU) In order to stop reuse of bank documents among student
applicants, Post has now implemented an SOP for F1 applicants in
which the sponsor's name is written into the case notes. Officers
then run the sponsor names as text searches in CCD. After building
a database for several weeks, Post continues to have great success
detecting bank statements that are being reused by applicants all
claiming that the aunt or uncle is sponsoring them. Carrying out
the additional text searches adds negligible time to the interview
and provides strong justifications for refusals. Post's newly
arrived Consul General intends to expand our relationship with local
banking executives in order to combat bank fraud.

6. (SBU) Thanks to several independent confidential informants (CIs)
post has begun to develop a case against an "overseas education
consultant" with offices in the U.S. and Kenya which appears to be
complicit in sponsorship fraud. CIs and a recent student applicant
have confirmed that for a fee of approximately $400, the consultant
works with local bank officers to temporarily transfer money into
sponsors' accounts to show sufficient financial support. A
U.S.-based CI states that this same organization helps Kenyans who
are in the U.S. withot status to apply for schools for their
children for a fee of $10,000, which likely includes university
applications, interview coaching, and inflation of sponsor bank
statements. The fraud unit will continue to work with Post's
A/RSO-I to build a case against the agency.

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IV FRAUD - SOMALIS' TRUE IDENTITIES UNKNOWN
-------------------------------------------

7. (U) Nairobi continues to encounter IV relationship fraud,
particularly in IR1 petitions for ethnic Somali applicants. Often,
the petitioner will have immigrated to the U.S. years before, often
as a refugee, and returned once for a marriage which went wholly
undocumented other than a marriage certificate usually issued from
Kenya. The cases are marked by virtually no evidence of a
relationship due to the largely oral nature of Somali culture.
While the volume of fraudulent Somali documents, including
passports, is large, all official Somali documents are unverifiable
because Somalia has not had a central government since 1991.
Forgeries continue to be commonplace, our fraud investigator
procured a Somali passport for himself listing a colleague as his
mother. There is virtually no difference between what we believe is
the genuine article and forgeries. Finally, the current political
situation continues to prohibit in-country consular investigations
and hampers our ability to make civil society contacts there.

8. (SBU) Post remains deeply concerned that for most Somali
applicants, their true identity remains unknown throughout the
immigration process. Post has begun to suspect that some ethnic
Somalis are concealing basic their basic identity, including name,
date of birth, and in some cases nationality (further information to
be provided septel). Nairobi now counsels IV applicants who are
undocumented Somalis resident in Kenya to seek registration as
aliens in Kenya so they can obtain genuine Police Certificates of
Good Conduct (PCGC), as these are often the only officially
recognized documents in their files. Ethnic Somalis' unwillingness
to become documented in Kenya and in turn their inability to seek
genuine PCGCs is a stumbling block for many otherwise qualified IV
applicants.

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DV FRAUD - OPERATION GHOST MARRIAGE UPDATE
------------------------------------------

9. (SBU) Ref B reports on arrests and disruption of a significant DV
fraud ring. The fraud ring matched principal applicants and paying
customers in sham marriages in an attempt to traffic their clients
as dependent spouses. Following the June arrest of almost 80
applicants and members of the fraud ring, Nairobi assisted Kenyan
Police in carrying out detailed investigations on each relationship.
At the conclusion of nearly two weeks of field investigations led
by the Fraud Unit's Investigations Assistant and an RSO Investigator
in conjunction with the Criminal Investigations Division, we were
able to determine that all but one relationship was conclusively
fraudulent. The fraud was pervasive in Western Kenya, and the ring
appears to have worked with complicit local officials, further
details to be provided septel.

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ACS and PASSPORT FRAUD
----------------------

10. (U) Nairobi continues to encounter fraudulent cases of
naturalized Amcits, often Somali-Americans, attempting to register
children born in the region as their own. Other fraud originates
with Somali-Americans seeking to renew passports for older children
who do not resemble the biometric information on the passports they
hold. Post also continues to work with Kenyan Immigration to root
out human trafficking of Somalis through Nairobi by Amcit Somalis
who, for a fee, send their passports back to Kenya for use by
look-alike impostors. The A/RSO-I has implemented a training
program to fill the void left by the departure of Post's DHS Customs
and Border Patrol representative. Nairobi's A/RSO-I continues to
liaise with airline and airport authorities who consistently catch
"look-alike" fraud. In a recent case, A Somali-American attempted
to smuggler a Somali national on her daughter's U.S. Passport.
Nairobi continues to be a transit point for African and Asian human
smugglers with destinations in Europe and the U.S.

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ADOPTION FRAUD MINIMAL
----------------------

11. (U) Post believes that due to the efforts of the GoK to maintain
the legitimacy of the adoption process, we have seen very little
adoption fraud involving Kenyan applicants. Adoptions have nearly
ground to a halt in Kenya, as government officials are currently in
the process of reviewing and updating Kenyan adoption regulations,
which have significantly reduced the number of adoptions in Kenya.
Due to this review, the Kenyan Department of Children's Services has
suspended all authorization of IR-4 petitions in which adoptions are
completed by prospective parents in the U.S. Post continues to
process adoption cases for the region.

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ASSISTING USCIS
---------------

12. (U) Post's fraud unit continues to act as a resource for
domestic USCIS investigators attempting to verify documents for
Kenyans attempting to change status in the U.S.. The majority of
document verification requests we receive are fraudulent divorce
decrees. Nairobi notes with concern that documents "certified" by
the Kenyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), office of State
Counsel, Legal Division often turn out to be fraudulent. Post is
taking this issue up with the MFA in an effort to improve the
credibility of these verifications.

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STAFFING AND TRAINING
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13. (U) The FPU unit includes one full-time FSN, Francis Marawoshe,
and three back-up FSNs with collateral duties. Due to significant
staffing shortages in NIV, the fraud unit remains thinly staffed.
Post plans to transition Mercy Duro to spending at least 20 percent
of her time in the fraud unit and continue her training such that
she is fully conversant in all anti-fraud functions. The current
Fraud Prevention Manager with collateral duties is Etienne LeBailly,
who received FPM training in December 2005. Post also has an
A/RSO-I.

RANNEBERGER

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