Cablegate: Calgary and Vancouver Fraud Summary

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RR RUEHGA RUEHHA RUEHMT RUEHQU
DE RUEHVC #0261/01 3141720
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 101720Z NOV 09
FM AMCONSUL VANCOUVER
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5342
RUEHPNH/NVC PORTSMOUTH NH
INFO RUCNCAN/ALL CANADIAN POSTS COLLECTIVE
RUEHVC/AMCONSUL VANCOUVER 7942

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 VANCOUVER 000261

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR CA/FPP
DHS FOR CIS/FDNS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: CVIS ASEC KFRD CPAS CMGT CA
SUBJECT: CALGARY AND VANCOUVER FRAUD SUMMARY

REF: 08 STATE 074840

VANCOUVER 00000261 001.2 OF 004

1. (U) SUMMARY. There are no significant fraud incidents to
report for this period. Note that this report is on behalf of
Calgary and Vancouver. End Summary.

2. (U) COUNTRY CONDITIONS. Vancouver and Calgary are low-fraud
posts. Malafide travelers find it less difficult to attempt
entry across the vast land border than apply for a visa.
Vancouver, Canada's third largest city, is one of the most
affluent and culturally diverse cities in North America. Recent
immigrants from Asian countries including India, China, the
Philippines, Korea, and Taiwan have flocked to the city in the
past decade. In fact, a third of the city is of Chinese origin
and Vancouver International Airport services daily flights from
many Asian capitals. Eastern Europeans and Russians have also
moved to Vancouver recently in significant numbers. Blaine,
Washington, the closest land border, is a mere thirty minutes by
car from downtown.

3. (U) Recent economic development and population growth have
led to a skyrocketing real estate market and major ethnic
diversity. The migration from abroad has also brought in
criminal elements and Vancouver is becoming home to an
increasing number of ethnic gangs. Vancouver has the highest
density per square mile in the entire country. Foreign
immigration remains the principal growth factor, reflected in
the fact that less than half of all residents in the Vancouver
area speak English at home. The application process for Canadian
documents, including passports and local birth certificates, is
fairly well-controlled. Post has not seen cases of fake Canadian
permanent resident card, which has similar security features to
the U.S. legal permanent resident card. However, local
authorities recently acknowledged that counterfeiting is
becoming a major problem in the province and post has seen cases
of individuals obtaining British Columbia identification cards
when they were not entitled to them.

4. (U) NIV FRAUD. Vancouver and Calgary detected fraud most
notably in the H1B category.

5. (U) Although visitor visa (B1/B2) fraud appears less
organized and less complicated, there continues to be incidences
where applicants try to cover up prior orders of removal or
unlawful presence in the U.S. They do so by changing names or
other identifying information after leaving the U.S. and
entering Canada either as immigrants or asylum claimants.
Usually, these applicants have only recently arrived in Canada
to seek legal status after residing unlawfully in the U.S. for
years. They will also present brand-new passports to hide their
previous travel. If IAFIS and IDENT do not catch these
applicants, their American regional accent or
better-than-average English will reveal that they have been
residing in the U.S. for a long time.

6. (U) Since Calgary and Vancouver rarely see first-time H1B
applicants who are not landed immigrants in Canada, there are
usually no concerns about an applicant's skill or experience.
That being said, during this reporting period Vancouver
witnessed a string of Turkish applicants applying for first-time
H1B visas. In most of the cases, their education was from Turkey
and the applicants had come to apply in Vancouver directly from
the U.S., where they had been most often been studying ESL.
While the H1B petitions were for teaching positions at charter
schools in the United States, most applicants had no prior
teaching experience and the schools were listed as related to
Fethullah Gulen. Post was in contact with FPMs in Turkey for
guidance in how to proceed with those cases.

7. (U) Most H1B fraud in Vancouver occurs when applicants come
to renew their H1B visas and the consular officers discover that
they are actually doing something other than working for their
Petitioner, or they have not been paid what they should and we
discover that they are being "benched". Vancouver has seen fewer
fraudulent H1B cases in this reporting period. One possible
reason for this is that post significantly reduced U.S.-based
renewal appointments during the summer because of staffing
shortages. Another reason is that Vancouver has been reviewing

VANCOUVER 00000261 002.2 OF 004

H1B cases much more closely since last year. By monitoring H1B
bulletin boards and chat rooms last year, Vancouver realized
that it was being targeted as an "easier" post in which to
apply. By requesting additional documentation, such as earnings
and leave documents, monthly bank statements, and pay records of
applicants that had not earned the correct year-to-date
salaries, this belief appears to have been dispelled.

8. (U) Calgary has worked aggressively in the last reporting
period to identify possible H1-B fraud based on the information
that was promulgated by Toronto in 09 Toronto 000193. Using the
tools provided, Calgary has looked more effectively at possible
"benching" of applicants and has been able to better respond to
adverse PIMS reports prepared by Kentucky Consular Center's
(KCC) FPU. In these cases we have not developed any clear-cut
instances of fraud, but have been able to ask additional
questions to resolve inconsistencies and have hopefully avoided
visa shopping within the mission and applicants coming to
Calgary expecting a less thorough review of the applications.
Both Calgary and Vancouver have found the PIMS reports in the
new version of NIV very helpful in adjudicating this type of
visa.

9. (U) Vancouver sees occasional fraud in treaty investor and
trader visa categories. Sometimes the fraud involves the
concealment of criminal ineligibilities that are usually
revealed in secondary inspection at the border when a CBP
officer accesses the applicant's Canadian criminal record. Other
times, it appears that the applicant is filing for an E visa so
that their children can attend school in the U.S. These
applicants tend to be recently naturalized Canadian citizens who
are looking to start small businesses in the U.S. while their
children attend high school or college there. They are generally
refused for not meeting the marginality requirement. Post has
seen E applicants who were former asylum seekers in the U.S. who
buy a small business in the U.S. upon becoming a Canadian
citizen after three years of permanent residency in Canada.

10. (U) Vancouver continues to monitor international student
applicants for possible fraud. Post conducted a validation study
in the last year for Mexicans who are on student status in
Canada. The results of the study seem to indicate that these
students tend to abide by the terms of their B1/B2 visas.

11. (U) IV FRAUD. Vancouver does not process immigrant visas but
does accept "clearly approvable" I-130 petitions. Post processes
K visas for applicants who are resident in the consular
district. K-visa applications are generally good with a few
immigration-purposes only cases.

12. (U) DV FRAUD. Calgary and Vancouver do not process DV visas.

13. (U) ACS AND PASSPORT FRAUD. As border controls strengthen
and visa applicants are more rigorously screened, post believes
attempted ACS and passport fraud will increase. One ACS fraud
scenario involves the creation of a false identity.
Historically, Canada has been a haven to Americans wishing to
escape US authorities. Consequently, the ACS Unit encounters
several people each year with outstanding warrants in the United
States. A new passport requirement for alien residents in Canada
means American fugitives, as well as others seeking to cut ties
with the U.S., may try to assume false identities and obtains
U.S. passports at the Consulate.

14. (U) In most of Calgary's ACS fraud cases, they have worked
directly with the appropriate domestic FPMs and CA to help
resolve questions. In fact, most potential cases have proven to
be fairly easily resolved. As an example, Calgary has had
several cases where applicants have denied having any previous
lost or stolen passports or even any previously issued
passports, but name checks revealed these claims to be
incorrect. Similarly, many of Calgary's fraud cases dealt with
suspicions about possibly questionable birth certificates. In
all of these cases, the birth certificates were satisfactorily
verified.

VANCOUVER 00000261 003.2 OF 004

15. (U) One of the more complicated cases Calgary has been
working on involves a potential false claim of paternity that
came to light when three children from the same mother and
father applied for passports. Although Consular Reports of
Birth Abroad had already been issued to all of the children a
year earlier, the facial characteristics of the children seemed
to point out the father of the first born son might have been
different. The father through whom the children derived their
citizenship is African-American, and the mother is not. Through
coordination with our contacts in the vital records department
who issued the original local birth certificate of the first
child, we discovered that he was originally registered with a
different last name and no father listed, and then nine years
later, had the birth certificate changed to list the father and
a different last name. The family now all lives in the U.S.,
and we are working with the Department to determine next steps.

16 (U) Vancouver was contacted last year by an American citizen
resident on Vancouver Island who wished to renew her passport
from 1999, the first ever issued to her, because she could not
find out about what happened to her mail-in renewal in the
United States. Post discovered that there is a fraud-hold on her
case because the ID and social security number of the applicant
is reported as matching a woman who died in the 1970's. In
addition, the applicant purporting to be the American citizen
helped her daughter to get her first American passport in 2000.
Post finally persuaded the applicant to apply in person and had
her into the Consulate General this reporting period. The fraud
unit, in conjunction with DS and RSO, had the applicant
fingerprinted and the results sent the results to DS in the
Seattle Passport Agency for processing. Post is waiting to hear
results in order to determine if she might have sought refuge in
Canada from U.S. law enforcement.

17. (U) Lost and stolen passports are numerous. Statistics are
difficult to compile, as many lost/stolen passports are either
not reported or are returned to authorities other than the
Consulate. Post estimates that perhaps 1,000 U.S. passports were
lost or stolen during 2006. As full implementation of the
Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) goes into effect in
2009, requiring a passport or other WHTI compliant travel
document for entering the United States by land or sea, this
number will rise, as more Americans will carry passports.
Vancouver has a particular problem regarding stolen passports.
In 2006, it had the second-highest property theft rate of any
urban area in North America.

18. (U) The historically open US-Canadian border often makes
documenting physical presence in the United States difficult, if
not impossible. Neither side of the border stamps entries in US
passports. Proof of physical presence is, of course, required
for transmitting citizenship to Canadian-born children. Within
the past year, post has detected several individuals fabricating
physical presence claims in order to meet the time requirements.
Some applicants apply years after being refused an initial time,
submitting different data and hoping for a different ruling. For
this reason, posts very rarely accept affidavits as proof of
physical presence.

19. (U) Canadian authorities go to great lengths to conceal
adoptions on official records to protect individual privacy.
Biological parent information on birth documents is routinely
replaced with the details of the adopting parents with no
evidence that a change ever took place. This makes concealing
adoptions for the purposes of claiming derivative citizenship
fairly easy. Post must scrutinize birth documents very carefully
and always ask to see the "long" birth form, when available.

20. (U) ADOPTION FRAUD. No fraud to report.

21. (U) DNA TESTING. No DNA testing this reporting period.

VANCOUVER 00000261 004.2 OF 004

22. (U) ASYLUM AND OTHER DHS BENEFITS FRAUD. No fraud to report.

23. (U) COOPERATION WITH HOST COUNTRY AUTHORITIES. Post enjoys a
good working relationship with authorities from all levels of
the host government. They are generally accessible and
responsive to consular needs.

24. (U) AREAS OF PARTICULAR CONCERN. Given Vancouver's proximity
to the U.S. border, there are significant concerns that foreign
nationals view the region as a transit center for ultimate
illegal entry into the United States. Vancouver is concerned
about the increase in B1 visa applicants who wish to drive
trucks into the U.S. Many of the applicants are Indian and come
into Canada on a work permit for another line of work, such as
construction, and subsequently take truck driver training
classes and get commercial drivers licenses. The majority of
truck driver applicants have never worked in this field before,
have poor English skills, and provide employment letters that
indicate that their jobs are contingent upon receipt of a U.S.
visa. Post has become more interested in these cases after
hearing about the arrest of an Indian national truck driver
(Canadian landed immigrant), Amrit Pal Singh Narwal, at the
U.S./Canada border in September 2009 for attempting to enter
Canada with 144 kilos of cocaine. Post is now sending such
applicants for a subsequent interview with our Fraud
Investigator who runs searches on the Canadian trucking
companies and contacts employers. By and large the businesses
are small and run out homes operating as a dispatch center for a
handful of trucks. The business phones are generally cell phones
and the owners are sometimes related to the applicants. It is
noteworthy to mention that there appears to be a growing
friction between Eastern European truck drivers that dominate
the Ontario and Eastern Canadian market and the influx of Indian
truck drivers who are predominantly in Western Canada.

25. (U) Calgary is currently working with the Department on
reported incidents of internet scammers who are using apparently
photo-shopped American passports as proof of their identity to
would-be targets. While these documents do not appear to have
been used for travel (and most likely only exist in digital
form), they have been sent to people with whom they have
developed contacts with over the internet. After building the
relationship, the scammer will then ask for money and send the
passport image as proof of who they are. In the two most recent
cases, it appears that the scammers have used the same
background template for the passport, and digitally substituted
different pictures and biographic data. Afraid that something
might be amiss, the potential victims have sent the passport
images to the Consulate for verification.

26. (U) Posts routinely refers cases to CBSA whenever applicants
reveal information during a visa interview that indicates they
committed fraud against Canadian immigration authorities.
Similarly, CBSA counterparts refer cases to post whenever they
believe the individual has committed fraud against U.S.
authorities.

27. (U) STAFFING AND TRAINING. Vancouver and Calgary have
part-time Fraud Prevention Managers (FPM) who are also NIV line
officers. Calgary has a locally engaged staff member who serves
as Fraud Prevention Manager Assistant and Vancouver hired a
full-time fraud prevention investigator last year. The current
investigator started work in Vancouver in February 2009.
HILL

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