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. 
 
------------------ 
COUNTRY CONDITIONS 
------------------ 
 
¶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. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
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. 
 
------------------------------------------- 
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. 
 
------------------------------------------ 
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. 
 
---------------------- 
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. 
 
---------------------- 
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. 
 
--------------- 
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. 
 
--------------------- 
STAFFING AND TRAINING 
--------------------- 
 
¶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