null
O 301015Z JUL 07
FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3942
INFO AMEMBASSY AMMAN 
AMEMBASSY CAIRO 
AMEMBASSY BEIRUT 
AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD 
AMEMBASSY SANAA 
AMEMBASSY KUWAIT 
AMEMBASSY ANKARA 
AMCONSUL ISTANBUL 
AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV 
AMEMBASSY MUSCAT 
AMEMBASSY MANAMA 
AMEMBASSY ABU DHABI 
AMEMBASSY DOHA 
AMEMBASSY ATHENS 
NVC PORTSMOUTH 6392
HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER WASHINGTON DC
DIR FBI WASHDC
ATHENS FOR DHS
DEPT FOR INL/HSTC
DEPT FOR NPC PORTSMOUTH



E.O. 12958: N/A

UNCLAS DAMASCUS 000773 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
TAGS: CVIS CPAS KFRD KCRM CMGT ASEC SY
 
SUBJECT: DAMASCUS FRAUD PREVENTION MANAGEMENT REPORT 
APRIL-JUNE 2007 
 
REF: 
 
A) 05 SECSTATE 205073 
B) DAMASCUS 617 
C) DAMASCUS 744 
D) DAMASCUS 765 
 
 
The following is submitted in response to the Department's request 
in Ref A. 
 
a. Country Conditions 
 
(SBU)  Syria has a centrally planned economy based on commerce, 
agriculture, oil production, and services. A variety of factors 
hamper economic growth, including the dominant state role in the 
economy, a complex bureaucracy, security concerns, corruption, 
currency restrictions, a lack of modern financial services and 
communications, and a weak, corrupt legal system. Syrian graduates 
find few job opportunities because of the controlled economy and 
slow growth.  Subsequently, economic conditions continue to provide 
fertile ground for fraud as the young unemployed or 
marginally-employed seek better opportunities in western 
industrialized countries. 
 
(SBU) Syria's population consists of approximately 18 million 
Syrians, about 432,000 registered Palestinians, and an estimated 1.4 
million Iraqis.  However, there are no official records on the 
actual number of Iraqis living in Syria, and estimates vary widely. 
In Damascus, the majority of visa applicants are Syrians, 
Palestinians and a few third-country nationals.  However, recently, 
Post has been experiencing a gradual increase in the number of Iraqi 
applicants. 
 
(SBU) In Syria, document fraud is relatively unsophisticated and 
mostly limited to civil documents - birth, marriage, divorce, family 
extracts, and employment letters.  Identity fraud is a serious crime 
in Syria, and penalties for tampering with civil documents are quite 
severe.  Given the difficulty of the U.S. relationship with the 
Government of the Syrian Arab Republic (SARG), the consular section 
has a limited working relationship with police, immigration, 
airport, and government officials.  All requests for police 
assistance and document verification must go through the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs (MFA) via diplomatic note. Generally it takes from 
30 to 90 days to verify a document. Therefore, each case is 
extremely labor-intensive. 
 
b. NIV Fraud 
 
(SBU) NIV fraud continues to be mainly in the 214(b) area of 
applicants who have the intention to immigrate, work or conduct 
permanent business in the U.S. while on B1/B2 visas. Fraudulent 
documents consist of bank statements, false letters of employment 
and family books to prove applicants' ties to Syria. 
 
(SBU) Post has seen a recent increase in Iraqi applicants as 
tourists, students and medical cases.  Post has instituted a new 
policy that all Iraqi documents be reviewed by the FPU if the 
applicant is going to be issued.  Concerns over the authenticity of 
Iraqi documents and lack of standardization of Iraqi passports are 
mitigated by the fact that many Iraqis are found ineligible for 
nonimmigrant visas under 214(b). 
 
(SBU) Most of Post's H-1B visas are issued to Syrian medical doctors 
willing to work in medically underserved areas.  They are highly 
qualified and there are few problems with these cases. 
 
c. IV Fraud 
 
(SBU) Post continues to be most concerned with sham marriage fraud 
in fianc (K1) or spouse (K3, CR-1) cases. 
 
 
(SBU) Recently Post discovered a trend of Syrian men who go to the 
U.S. and acquire American citizenship through marriage to an 
American Citizen even though they are still married in Syria.  They 
claim having either (1) divorced their first wife or (2) having had 
a relationship with her out of wedlock, having had their children 
born out of wedlock, and not being married to the mother until after 
divorcing the American wife.  According to Syrian civil law if the 
divorce is not registered, the divorce is not valid.  If people have 
children out of wedlock it is impossible to register them on the 
family extract without a court order.  We are able to verify through 
their family extracts that the children were born in wedlock and the 
man had never divorced his first wife.  This comes to light when the 
men file Immigrant Visa petitions for either their first wife and 
children or just the children.  When they claim to have divorced 
their first wife, a check of the family extract does not support 
that claim and the majority of divorce certificates investigated 
were found fraudulent. 
 
(SBU) Post has seen a dramatic increase in Iraqi IV cases, mainly 
due to the inability of Iraqis to travel to Cairo and Amman.  The 
majority of Iraqi cases are fianc (K1) or spouse (K3, CR-1) cases. 
Fraud indicators involved in most cases include but are not limited 
to unreliable documents and limited documentation.  Since Iraqis are 
not living in Syria, they do not generally travel with all of their 
identity documents and are unable or unwilling to go back to Iraq 
due to the current environment to get additional identity documents. 
 Post has instituted a new policy where FPU examines all Iraqi 
documents before the IV officer conducts the interview.  Over the 
past quarter FPU has identified several bad "S" series passports, 
one "H" series passport and one "G" series passport and a fake MFA 
seal.  (See ref B.) 
 
(SBU) 
 
d. DV Fraud 
 
(SBU) FPU has not conducted any DV fraud investigations this 
quarter. 
 
e. ACS and Passport Fraud 
 
(SBU) Post has not had serious cases of passport or CRBA fraud this 
quarter.  We are concerned with the issue of AmCits leaving the US 
without a US passport (ref C) and with the increasing trend of Iraqi 
and Iranians born in the US claiming citizenship as adults for the 
first time (ref D). 
 
f. Adoption Fraud 
 
(SBU) Post completed its first adoption case under the new Syrian 
law allowing Catholics to adopt Catholic children - no fraud was 
detected. 
 
g. Asylum and DHS Benefit Fraud 
 
(SBU) During this quarter, Post has also investigated documents for 
DHS in connection with naturalization proceedings, adjustment of 
status, labor certification, and political asylum.  Most of the 
documents proved to be fraudulent, particularly divorce certificates 
and employment and work experience letters. 
 
h. Cooperation with Host Government Authorities 
 
(SBU) As previously noted, the Embassy has limited liaison ability 
with the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic (SARG).  All 
requests for police assistance and document verification must go 
through the MFA via diplomatic note. However, the Consular Section 
maintains regular contacts with counterparts from European and other 
 
 
Embassies and takes part in regular meetings of the interembassy 
anti-fraud working group. 
 
i. Areas of Particular Concern 
 
(SBU) No significant concerns to report. 
 
j. Staffing and Training 
 
(SBU) Post implemented a fraud prevention program in 2005.  Post's 
Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU) consists of an officer who shares duties 
as Deputy Chief of the Consular Section and Fraud Prevention Manager 
(FPM), and a full-time investigator.  The FPM has taken the Fraud 
Prevention course at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI).  The FSN 
investigator has attended the Fraud Prevention training at FSI. 
Because of the strained relations between the United States and 
Syria, DHS Athens and the Embassy are limited in their ability to 
provide resources and training to SARG officials.  The e-mail 
address for the unit is FPMDamascus@state.gov. 
 
(SBU) Post has implemented a regular training program that includes 
civil and travel documents.  This quarter, Post has continued to 
focus on Iraqi passports and identity cards and has created a 
reference library of authentic and fraudulent samples. 
 
CORBIN