VZCZCXRO5742
RR RUEHDT RUEHPB
DE RUEHVN #0836/01 3181044
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 141044Z NOV 07
FM AMEMBASSY VIENTIANE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1638
INFO RUEHBK/AMEMBASSY BANGKOK 7544
RUEHPNH/NVC PORTSMOUTH 0454
RUCNARF/ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 VIENTIANE 000836 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR CA/EX/FPP 
STATE FOR CA/CI 
STATE FOR EAP/MLS (Bestic) 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KFRD CVIS CPAS CMGT LA
SUBJECT: VIENTIANE FRAUD SUMMARY:  Q4 FY 2007 
 
 
The contents of the telegram are SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED (SBU). 
Please protect accordingly. 
 
¶A. (U) The Lao People's Democratic Republic is a poor, 
least-developed country with a single-party communist government. 
The Hmong are the second largest ethnic minority in Laos, accounting 
for almost 10% of the total population, but comprise an estimated 
25% to 30% of our visa applicants. 
 
With an estimated $572 per capita income, Laos is one of the poorest 
countries in East Asia.  Nearly 71% of the population lives on less 
than $2 a day, with 23% living on less than $1 per day.  Illiteracy 
is about 47%. Agriculture is the major sector of the economy, 
contributing 46% of the GDP and employing approximately 79% of the 
population, mostly in subsistence farming.  Poverty and a 
totalitarian government are main contributors to fraud in Laos, as 
citizens attempt to illegally emigrate permanently, or temporarily 
work illegally in the United States. 
 
The ethnic Lao population in the U.S., which is large relative to 
the Lao national population, is also a draw for illegal immigration 
as families attempt to reunite in the United States.  The most 
recent U.S. census estimated that 170,000 ethnic Lao and 170,000 
ethnic Hmong currently live in the United States.  The ethnic Hmong 
population in the US is equal to almost 30% of the ethnic Hmong 
population in Laos. 
 
Passports and national ID cards are the only nationally issued forms 
of identification, but the information on a Lao passport or ID card 
cannot be accepted at face value.  False or duplicate identities are 
common among visa applicants. Obtaining a passport issued with a 
false identity is relatively easy, in many cases not even requiring 
a bribe.  Laos does not have a well-established tradition of civil 
documents, and, as such, there is little standardization or security 
for documents such as birth or marriage certificates.  Additionally, 
many of these documents are issued at the village level by the 
village chief, and, as such, will say generally whatever the 
requestor wants them to say.  Many documents submitted to the 
Consular Section in support of an application for any service are 
hand written.  Further, forged or false business licenses, bank 
books, identity cards, and household registration books are common. 
Detection of altered or fraudulent documents is usually easy as 
production is unsophisticated. 
 
B.(U) NIV Fraud.  Nothing new to report. 
 
¶C. (U) IV Fraud: Fiance (K1) Visas.  During the reporting period, 
Conoffs interviewed several female Hmong K1 applicants who stated 
that they had been interviewed in Laos on videotape by unnamed Hmong 
men during the traditional Hmong New Year celebration (usually mid 
to late November through early December).  With the assistance of a 
Congressional office in Minnesota, we obtained a copy of one of 
these tapes that was for sale in an Asian supermarket in 
Minneapolis.  The tape is titled, "Hmong Girls are Waiting for You," 
apparently an annual match-making video production.  The tape 
consists of poor quality camerawork of a few people walking around 
at the previous year's Hmong Ethnic New Year festivals and filming 
random young women, asking their names and what village they were 
from.  Some of the women provide contact phone numbers.  We have 
begun to collect these names for comparison with pending and future 
applications.  Among the many fraud indicators in these cases are 
altered household registrations and/or birth certificates.  The 
applicant's year of birth is usually changed to make her appear 
older.  In at least one case, an applicant has admitted to being 
under 14 years old when meeting the petitioner but documents 
presented stated she was 18.  This case has been referred to the ICE 
office in Bangkok for further investigation. 
 
¶D. (SBU) DV Fraud:  All of the six 2007 DV winners who presented 
documents for interview were assisted by a Lao-American woman who 
resides in Omaha, NE.  The woman had not only assisted them with the 
initial applications for the lottery but also filled out the visa 
application forms, providing her home address as the U.S. mailing 
address.  A majority of the applicants presented clearly fraudulent 
documents to demonstrate educational qualifications and were unable 
to demonstrate bona fides to prove their claimed spousal 
relationships, all of which reportedly began after the principal 
applicant was selected for the DV lottery. 
 
The broker traveled to Vientiane to resolve the pending cases in 
September.  During an interview with a DV applicant, she was seen 
discussing unknown matters with several other visa applicants in the 
waiting room.  She and the DV applicants frenetically disrupted the 
flow of other NIV and IV processing, interrupting several 
interviews. One of her clients refused to accept the refusal of her 
 
VIENTIANE 00000836  002 OF 002 
 
 
visa application, tracked down post's senior IV LES, and went to his 
house on two occasions accompanied by the broker.  The applicant 
attempted to bribe the LES and enlist his assistance with getting 
her refusal overcome.  The applicant continued to call the LES 
employee on his private cell phone many times. He diligently 
reported this to the Consular chief and assisted in an 
investigation. 
 
During an interview with the RSO and the Consular chief, the broker 
claimed to be religiously motivated by a vision to assist as many 
people to emigrate to the U.S. as possible.  She claims she has been 
assisting person with the Diversity Visa process since 2005, 
processing 200 to 300 applications each year. Being a full time 
tailor, she enlisted her seven children to assist in the online 
applications and paperwork processing.  She claims this is all 
without a fee, although she pays her children in the U.S. for 
assisting her with data entry for the applications.  Upon arrival, 
the beneficiaries supposedly stay with her until they can make their 
own living arrangements. She claims that for the 2008 DV cycle she 
has 4 winners in Laos and 1 in Thailand. 
 
The RSO and Consul have informed the broker that she is barred from 
all future contact with any consular employee in the visa unit. 
 
¶E. (U) ACS and Passport Fraud:  Nothing new to report. 
 
¶F. (SBU) Adoption Fraud.  During the reporting period, the Consular 
Chief spoke on several occasions with a U.S. citizen woman who 
stated she is a representative of a U.S.-based non-profit church 
group called Unreached Villages (see http://unreachedvillages.org). 
She claims that she arrived in Laos in February 2007 with her 
husband and several children and had been "given" a Lao infant by an 
unnamed Lao woman, who she claims told her would "throw the baby in 
the Mekong River" if she did not take the child.  The US citizen 
woman has filed a formal adoption application for the baby with the 
Office of the Prime Minister, and stated she would file an I-600 
Visa petition for the child with the USCIS office in Portland, 
Oregon.  She further stated that Unreached Villages hopes to open an 
orphanage in Laos in the near future.  While we do not doubt the 
sincerity of this woman or this organization in their efforts to 
assist Lao children, we are concerned about the circumstances around 
the claimed incident with the child that this woman claims she is 
adopting and will monitor any future cases brought to our attention 
closely. 
 
¶G. (U) Asylum and other DHS Benefit Fraud:  Nothing new to report. 
 
¶H. (U) Cooperation with the Authorities:  The Consular Chief meets 
regularly with his working level counterpart at the Consular 
Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss Lao 
passport fraud.  The Visa Unit confiscates duplicate identity 
passports detected during the visa interview process by the IDENT 
system and returns them to MFA with biodata on the applicants and 
their claimed identities. 
 
¶I.  Areas of Particular Concern:  Nothing new to report. 
 
HUSO