VZCZCXYZ0034
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHSG #1022/01 3021836
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 291807Z OCT 09
FM AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0197
INFO RUEHSG/AMEMBASSY SANTIAGO

UNCLAS SANTIAGO 001022 
 
SIPDIS 
DEPT FOR CA/FPP, DHS FOR CIS/FDNS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: CVIS KFRD CPAS CMGT ASEC CI
SUBJECT: FRAUD SUMMARY - CHILE 
 
REF: 09 STATE 041657Z 
 
Post is submitting the following fraud summary report, which covers 
the period between March 2009 to August 2009, in accordance with 
reftel. 
 
 
 
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COUNTRY CONDITIONS 
 
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¶1.  Chile is a democratic country with a developing free-market 
economy.  Chile is a key U.S. partner in promoting democracy, human 
rights, and free trade in the region and beyond.  The United States 
and Chile have a Free Trade agreement that took effect January 1, 
¶2004.  Compared to other countries in the region, there is 
relatively little migratory "pull" to the United States.  Chilean 
civil documents are generally reliable and formatting and security 
features in Chilean civil documents make falsification difficult. 
Chilean passports are machine readable and difficult to obtain 
fraudulently.  Chile has a reliable system of reporting lost or 
stolen passports, driver's licenses, and Chilean identification 
cards (known as RUTs).  Chileans are assigned a national ID number 
at the time the parents register children at the Civil Registry to 
obtain a birth certificate.  The actual RUT card is normally not 
issued until a person begins traveling internationally or enters 
university.  Much like the system of reporting a lost or stolen 
credit card in the U.S., Chilean citizens can go online to report a 
lost or stolen civil document.  This information is immediately 
available to banks, the Chilean International Police, and other 
government entities. 
 
 
 
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NIV FRAUD 
 
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¶2.  During this reporting period, post's Fraud Prevention Unit 
(FPU) conducted 187 NIV investigations and uncovered 43 fraudulent 
nonimmigrant visa cases (23% of investigations found fraudulent). 
A majority of these cases involved routine fraud, such as 
submission of altered bank statements or doctored employment and 
property documents.  Post suspects visa fixers were involved in 
many of these cases, but there is no way to confirm these 
suspicions.  As in the past, post has not been able to obtain 
cooperation from Chilean police authorities to investigate or 
prosecute visa fixers. 
 
 
 
¶3.  The FPU continues to have excellent contacts with local banks, 
and the Chilean tax service has been essential in verifying 
suspicious documents.  But our most instrumental contacts have been 
the Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones (AFP), an employee 
retirement fund that working Chileans are required by law to pay 
into.  Through our AFP contacts, the FPU is able to confirm an 
applicant's employer, salary, and length of employment.  These 
contacts are important for our work because many applicants who 
wish to defraud the visa application system do so by lying about 
their employment and salary. 
 
 
 
¶4.  The DHS Arrival Departure Information System (ADIS) has been 
fully integrated into all of the units.  ADIS has been used 
successfully by the NIV unit to uncover overstays, especially when 
renewal applicants arrive with "lost" passports that would reflect 
overstays.  Post looks forward to its implementation in the NIV 
application towards the end of 2010.  Also, post is pleased that 
its H/L visa fraud prevention proposal will be funded by CA/FPP. 
Post looks forward to using the funds to access Dicom, Chile's most 
powerful credit reporting agency.  Post will use this tool to 
verify the qualifications of our H and L visa applications. 
 
 
 
¶5.  The J1 Summer Work and Travel program is popular among many 
Chilean college students.  Post conducted a validation study of its 
FY2008 and FY2009 Summer Work Travel (SWT) J1 visa program.  The 
 
results show a steady increase in issuance, but a slight decreased 
in overstay rates.  While FY08 saw an overstay rate of about 4.4%, 
FY09 results show an overstay rate of 3%.  For the FY08 SWT season 
(December 2007-April 2008), Santiago issued 3.536 SWT J1 visas, 15% 
more than the previous year.  For the FY09 SWT season (December 
2008-April 2009), Santiago issued 3.678 SWT J1 visas, an increase 
of 4% over the previous year.  Post is currently interviewing J1 
SWT visa applicants for FY10.  Although the season has just begun, 
applicant numbers are significantly down compared to this time last 
year. 
 
 
 
¶6.  Post has recently been receiving H2B applicants applying to 
work as temporary horse trainers.  Post suspects that one law firm 
in New York is charging these unwitting applicants unreasonably 
high administrative fees.  Post is working with Mexico City, 
Monterey, and CA/FPP to investigate. 
 
 
 
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IV FRAUD 
 
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¶7.  FPU reviews K1, K2, and CR1 visa applications; in total, the IV 
Unit referred 104 cases to FPU.  Two cases were found to be 
fraudulent.  One K1 case involved a petitioner and a beneficiary 
who married weeks before the beneficiary was deported on 
immigration charges.  During the interview, the FPU contacted them 
separately at the same time and discovered that their marriage was 
a fraud.  Another case involved a couple who changed their mind 
after their interviews with the IV officer and FP Investigator. 
The couple admitted many discrepancies in their story and the 
evidence of relationship was found to be weak.  The IV Unit has 
also successfully incorporated ADIS information to confirm 9B1 and 
9B2 ineligibilities.  ADIS is also being used to confirm 
eligibility for transportation letters for Legal Permanent 
Residents (LPRs) who have been outside the U.S. less than one year. 
 
 
 
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DV FRAUD 
 
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¶8.  No DV fraud was detected during the reporting period.  DV 
applications remain relatively low compared to neighboring 
countries.  Last year, only 15 applicants received a DV--and five 
of these chose not to go through with the process. 
 
 
 
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ACS AND PASSPORT FRAUD 
 
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¶9.  ACS is working with CA/FPP to investigate a possible case of 
imposter fraud.  PIERS records indicated that a U.S. passport had 
been issued in the name of a passport applicant just a few months 
prior to her application, presumably to an imposter in the U.S. 
The ACS officer found strong indications that the U.S. citizen 
mother, who abandoned the applicant when she was three-years-old in 
Chile, may be a part of the fraud. 
 
 
 
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ADOPTION FRAUD 
 
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¶10.  Post processed no adoption cases in this reporting period. 
Foreign adoptions are rare in Chile.  Along with CA/Children's 
 
Issues, post is working with SENAME (the Chilean Central Authority) 
to implement the Hague convention on adoption.  But SENAME has not 
cooperated with our many attempts to make the accreditation process 
transparent for U.S. adoption agencies.  This Chilean government 
agency continues to place difficult bureaucratic barriers on the 
adoption of children by foreigners.  For example, in this reporting 
cycle two U.S. adoption agencies applied for accreditation and were 
denied by SENAME.  However, post will continue to work with SENAME 
to help U.S. adoption agencies become accredited in Chile. 
 
 
 
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DNA TESTING 
 
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¶11.  No IV or ACS applicants have opted for DNA tests. 
 
 
 
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ASYLUM AND DHS BENEFIT FRAUD 
 
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¶12.  No cases of fraud were identified during the reporting period. 
 
 
 
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ALIEN SMUGGLING, TRAFFICKING, ORGANIZED CRIMES, AND TERRORIST 
TRAVEL 
 
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¶13.  No cases encountered. 
 
 
 
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DS CRIMINAL FRAUD INVESTIGATIONS 
 
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¶14. There were no cases of DS criminal fraud investigations during 
the reporting period.  FPU continues to have a good working 
relationship with the RSO office. 
 
 
 
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HOST COUNTRY DOCUMENTATION 
 
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¶15. There were no cases of host country documentation fraud during 
the reporting period. 
 
 
 
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COOPERATION WITH HOST GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES 
 
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¶16.  The FPU continues to enjoy a high level of cooperation from 
host government authorities on issues including immigration, tax, 
and civil registration.  However, as noted, it is difficult to get 
the host government to prosecute perpetrators of visa fraud.  It is 
not a crime, under Chilean law, to provide a fraudulent document to 
 
the U.S. Embassy in pursuit of a visa. 
 
 
 
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AREAS OF PARTICULAR CONCERN 
 
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¶17. Post greatly appreciates information from CA/FPP regarding 
fraudulent U.S. visas being used to transit through Chile.  Post 
believes that a regional Southern Cone fraud conference would be an 
effective way to alert neighboring Embassies and Consulates to 
similar fraud trends that surpass borders.  The conference would 
also provide a venue to discuss potential mechanisms to improve 
fraud prevention and ACS processes in the region. 
 
 
 
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STAFFING AND TRAINING 
 
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¶18.  The FPU consists of the Visa Unit Chief and Fraud Prevention 
Manager, Bill Whitaker; one Locally Engaged Staff fraud 
investigator, Ilse Schacker; and one Vice Consul, John Choi, 
currently serving a six-month rotation as the FPU Officer.  The 
Vice Consul also serves as the IV Chief, NIV officer, and back-up 
ACS Officer. 
 
 
 
¶19.  The FPU Officer recently returned from the WHA FPU conference 
in Miami.  On his return, he gave an overview presentation of the 
conference to the entire staff.  The FPU Officer also took the 
lessons learned from the conference, assessed post's fraud 
prevention practices for their effectiveness, and reformed several 
FPU procedures among the NIV staff.  He also instituted a monthly 
Sherlock Holmes prize given to the LES or officer who makes the 
most significant fraud prevention contribution during the previous 
month.  As a result of both initiatives, many in the section have 
showed a renewed interest in detecting fraud.  Post has also 
requested training by the DHS Carrier Liaison Program (CLP) to 
provide training to our airline and immigration contacts. 
 
 
 
¶20. The LES staff has been encouraged to take online courses that 
focus on fraud detection.  Their recent interest and participation 
in these courses is a positive sign of post's efforts to combat 
fraud.  Finally, post will continue to nominate LES for FSI fraud 
prevention training, as no LES from post has ever attended this 
valuable training. 
SIMONS