VZCZCXRO5896
PP RUEHLN RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHDBU #0195/01 0301136
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 301136Z JAN 06
FM AMEMBASSY DUSHANBE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6559
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHFT/AMCONSUL FRANKFURT PRIORITY 0487
RUEHDBU/AMEMBASSY DUSHANBE 7655

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 DUSHANBE 000195 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR CA/FPP; DEPT ALSO PASS TO KCC; POSTS FOR FRAUD 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KFRD CVIS CPAS CMGT ASEC TI
SUBJECT: FRAUD SUMMARY - TAJIKISTAN 
 
REF: STATE 205073 
 
DUSHANBE 00000195  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) COUNTRY CONDITIONS:  Tajikistan, independent since the 
Soviet breakup in 1991, is the poorest Central Asian republic 
and the ninth poorest country per capita in the world.  The vast 
majority of the population lives well below the poverty line, 
inducing many working-age Tajik males to become migrant workers 
in Russia rather than face rampant unemployment and 
underemployment in Tajikistan.  Though some Tajiks legally work 
abroad and remit their earnings back to Tajikistan, trafficking 
in narcotics and persons, as well as a large black and gray 
economy, increase the use of fraudulent documents.  Fraudulent 
document venders are prevalent and target the migrant labor 
population, as well as the local small-time trading community. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Though anti-corruption laws exist in theory, 
enforcement and implementation remain elusive.  Corrupt 
government officials continue to thwart attempts to tighten the 
issuance and regulation of national identity documents. 
Instances of fraudulently issued domestic and international 
passports are highly suspected, though Tajik officials will not 
address this issue directly with Embassy officials.  [NOTE: 
Tajikistan continues to use domestic passports for travel and 
registration for Tajik nationals within the country, and a 
separately issued international passport for travel outside of 
Tajikistan.  Approximately 15% of the population has an 
international passport and large bribes are expected to receive 
a new one.]  The defunct skeleton of the former Soviet 
record-keeping system and the lack of integrated or organized 
local and national archives make investigation and verification 
of Tajik-issued documents difficult at best, irrelevant at 
worst.  Across the board, documents from bank and real estate 
statements to birth and marriage certificates can easily be 
obtained fraudulently for any purpose. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Embassy Dushanbe will not issue non-immigrant visas in 
Tajikistan until the completion of its New Embassy Compound in 
Summer 2006.  Tajik nationals currently travel to Almaty, 
Kazakhstan, to interview for non-immigrant and immigrant visas. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) NIV FRAUD:  Lack of trust in Tajik documents makes it 
very difficult to assess local social and economic ties. 
Tajikistan remains a very traditional society:  Tajiks do not 
typically put money in banks and letters of employment (even 
government positions) are often created and issued within family 
and clan structures.  Tajiks will change passports and names to 
conceal previous visa refusals thanks to Tajik officials who 
exhibit a cavalier disregard for the sanctity of national 
identity documents.  Recently, a group of Russian sportsmen were 
issued Tajik international passports listing their nationality 
and place of birth as Tajikistan for the purposes of 
representing Tajikistan in an international competition. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) IV FRAUD:  Post accepts and processes a limited number 
of I-130 petitions (approximately one a month).  Marriage fraud 
in Tajikistan is not common apart from DV applicants.  Tajik 
society is very traditional and is generally not open to 
marriage to foreign citizens.  In addition, there are relatively 
few Tajik-Americans, negating the rampant marriage fraud that 
comes with large diaspora communities. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) DV FRAUD:  DV fraud in Tajikistan echoes that of the 
Central Asian region.  Almaty recently reported a sham marriage 
(pop-up derivative) in a Tajik DV case.  Though high school 
equivalent documents cannot be trusted implicitly, Tajiks 
roughly fall into two categories and can be assessed based on 
overall life situation: agricultural laborers from the villages 
and mountains (unlikely to have earned a high school education) 
and city residents (usually have college degrees in addition to 
high school equivalent education). 
 
¶7.  (SBU) ACS and PASSPORT FRAUD:  Post has yet to record ACS or 
passport fraud in Tajikistan.  Due to the small American citizen 
community, the Consular Officer and Embassy local staff are 
often personally acquainted with resident Americans.  Few Tajiks 
have U.S. citizenship, CRBA's are issued no more than once a 
year, and many of the Americans resident in Tajikistan have 
diplomatic or official passports.  Lost or stolen passports are 
rare occurrences and in the past few years lost passports were 
often returned within one week of disappearance. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) ADOPTION FRAUD:  Very few U.S. citizens successfully 
adopt in Tajikistan.  Those who choose to follow the full legal 
adoption system are often forced to give up due to senseless 
bureaucratic wrangling.  The government of Tajikistan does not 
have a set of laws governing international adoption and is 
reluctant to make progress, leaving a chaotic and arbitrary 
process.  Large unofficial bribes are suspected to be the reason 
for the few completed adoptions in Tajikistan.  There are no 
NGOs or agencies in Tajikistan that work on adoption issues, and 
 
DUSHANBE 00000195  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
an American citizen recently could not even find Tajik lawyers 
or judges willing to look at his adoption case. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Fraudulent documents required for adoption are not 
difficult to obtain.  During an I-604 orphan investigation, post 
discovered forged hospital records and a fraudulent birth 
certificate submitted "by mistake" by a self-declared adoption 
facilitator.  The birth certificate, fraudulently issued by a 
Tajik hospital, listed the adoption facilitator and his wife as 
the orphan's birth parents.  The facilitator intended to use 
this birth certificate in order to transport the adopted child 
as his own to Almaty for visa processing and was caught because 
he accidentally left it in the packet of information he 
submitted for the I-604. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) ASYLUM AND OTHER DHS BENEFITS FRAUD:  Post assists 
DHS to verify documents and determine status.  Though Tajik 
documents are not to be trusted as a rule, recent investigations 
discovered exact cases of documented fraud.  In a recent asylum 
case, post's investigation revealed a forged birth certificate 
that was material in final determination of asylum status in the 
United States. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) COOPERATION WITH HOST GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES: 
Document fraud is technically a criminal offence in Tajikistan. 
In combating these crimes, the Tajik Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
is at best an occasionally competent partner.  The MFA 
periodically informs us by diplomatic note about the numbers of 
lost or stolen Tajik passports, and also cooperates with post's 
requests for verification of civil documents (though usually 
months later than requested).  But endemic corruption, shoddy 
record keeping, and lack of prosecution for document fraud limit 
the utility of cooperation. 
 
¶12.  (U) AREAS OF PARTICULAR CONCERN:  Post will address new 
concerns and increase examples of documented fraud once NIV 
processing begins in Tajikistan in Summer 2006.  An expected 
boom in NIV applicants, able to interview in their own capital 
for the first time, will undoubtedly increase the frequency and 
complexity of NIV fraud. 
 
¶13.  (U) STAFFING AND TRAINING:  Dushanbe Consular Section Chief 
Evan McCarthy is also Post Prevention Manager.  He expects to 
complete the Fraud Prevention for Managers course at FSI in 
Spring 2006.  Post currently has one Consular FSN, Natalia 
Pilipenko, and will hire two additional positions for the 
opening of the new fully functional Consular section, one of 
which will be FSN fraud investigator.  Natalia has received visa 
and document fraud training during the FSN Consular Training 
Seminar at RSC Frankfurt, October 1998. 
HOAGLAND