VZCZCXYZ0005
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHOS #0027/01 0320616
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 010616Z FEB 08
FM AMCONSUL LAGOS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 9693
INFO RUEHUJA/AMEMBASSY ABUJA 9430
RUEHPNH/NVC PORTSMOUTH 0406

UNCLAS LAGOS 000027 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/W 
STATE FOR CA/FPP 
STATE FOR KCC 
POSTS FOR FRAUD PREVENTION MANAGERS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KFRD CVIS CMGT ASEC NI
SUBJECT: FRAUD SUMMARY - LAGOS FOURTH QUARTER 07 
 
REF: (A) 07 STATE 00171211 
 
------------------ 
COUNTRY CONDITIONS 
------------------ 
 
¶1.  Background:  Nigeria covers 356,669 sq miles and has a 
population of approximately 135 million.  The major languages are 
English (official), Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa.  Approximately 60% of 
the population is below the poverty line for Nigeria.  The current 
GDP is 1,500 dollars, and the inflation rate is 8.2%.  This high 
poverty rate, coupled with the population pressures, induces 
large-scale migration. 
 
¶2.  Nigeria has very limited internal controls regarding issuance of 
documents, to include passports.  The lack of controls and a high 
incidence of bribery that permeates every level of society create an 
environment where anything and everything is available and for sale. 
 With enormous hunger for visas as an escape route, documents that 
cannot be trusted, and security situations that make travel 
difficult, Lagos is without a doubt a high-fraud post. 
 
--------- 
NIV FRAUD 
--------- 
 
¶3.  The NIV unit continues to see fraudulent documents submitted to 
create the impression of an established travel history.  On December 
13, two groups of three NIV applicants, supposedly traveling 
together for training and sponsored by their employers, applied for 
B1 visas.  The interviewing officers noted that two of the three 
applicants in the first group had fake French Schengen Visas:  the 
print was incorrect and the holographic foil feature was of very 
poor quality. Their passports also had matching fake entry stamps 
for France, clearly hand-carved.  The second group of three each had 
fake UK Schengen visas, printed on identically wrong visa foils and 
with hand-carved UK entry stamps. 
 
¶4.  The applicants were interviewed by the FPU and ARSO/I together, 
and while some of the applicants contended that the visas were real 
and they had in fact traveled to Europe, several of the applicants 
confessed that they had paid a man to set them up with documents and 
an appointment. They had never met their fellow applicants before 
that morning outside the Consulate.  One of the applicants said that 
he paid 50,000 Naira for the documents, the equivalent of 430 
dollars, while the others who confessed said they had paid 300,000 
Naira, or 2,500 dollars.  These applicants were handed over to the 
Nigerian police. 
 
¶5.  R1 religious worker visas continue to be a point of concern. In 
the case of large religious groups such as the Catholic Church, 
there are established organizations with which we can work to verify 
the claims of applicants in Nigeria and the receiving church in the 
United States. Smaller churches, such as the evangelical sects, 
present more of a problem when it comes to authenticating documents 
and membership.  The ongoing investigation by DHS into the Redeemed 
Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Texas has meant that officers have 
been refusing R1 applicants for that organization under 221g pending 
the outcome. Since beginning this practice, post has seen applicants 
for other petition-based NIVs, mostly H1Bs, who are going to work 
for consulting and accounting firms whose clients include the RCCG; 
post has refused these applicants under 221g as well. 
 
-------- 
IV FRAUD 
-------- 
 
¶6.  The bulk of the FPU's resources are devoted to unearthing fraud 
for IV and DV cases.  FPU conducts field investigations to verify 
the validity of submitted documents and claimed relationships.  FPU 
investigators have built up a stable of trustworthy contacts in 
various regions of the country over the years.  These have proven an 
invaluable resource, as Nigeria is a country where the public 
officials themselves are often implicated in the deception, whether 
through ignorance of their own laws or through actual corruption. 
 
 
¶7.  F-1 unmarried adult children of American citizens continue to be 
a source of fraud investigations.  Field visits by our investigators 
routinely find purportedly unmarried F-1s living with a spouse and 
children. Applicants also attempt to thwart our efforts at a field 
investigation by providing false contact information, which 
unfortunately adds to the duration of the investigation. 
 
¶8.  IR-2 stepchildren also present a challenge. The typical case 
involves a parent who travels to the United States on a visitor visa 
and then divorces the Nigerian spouse shortly after traveling or in 
some cases shortly before departure.  The parent finds an American 
citizen spouse, whom they marry to adjust status, and then the 
American citizen petitions for the children in Nigeria as 
stepchildren.  FPU utilizes a number of tools to combat this fraud. 
CCD searches show whether or not left-behind spouses have been 
issued a visa themselves, while Lexis-Nexis allows us to see if the 
petitioner and biological parent are listed as living together.  An 
FPU field investigation shows whether or not the surrounding 
community is aware of the divorce, and whether or not the biological 
parent in the United States is carrying on a relationship with the 
left-behind. 
 
¶9.  In one recent case, the purported stepmother in the United 
States filed for a pair of stepchildren. The biological father had 
traveled on an NIV a number of years before, divorcing the 
biological mother before he left. He had not had any children with 
the wife in the United States, but had fathered a child who was born 
in the United States with another woman with whom he said he had an 
affair.  The birth certificate was submitted.  According to CCD 
records, the biological mother had been refused an NIV a year or so 
after the father traveled and had not applied since.  The mother of 
the baby born in the United States had also applied for NIVs and 
received them. 
 
¶10.  A comparison of the photos of these two women showed that they 
were in fact one and the same; after being refused an NIV, the 
biological mother applied under a false name, traveled to the United 
States, and bore a child for a man from whom she was supposedly 
divorced.  When the children, aged 8 and 10, were shown the two 
photos - mother under her own name, and mother under the false name 
- they denied recognizing either.  However, the older cousin who 
brought the children to the interview was called up and, ignorant of 
the reason behind the question, promptly identified both photos as 
the mother of the applicants.  As the relationship between the 
petitioner and the biological father was clearly a sham, the 
petition was revoked.  The information was sent to the FPM at NVC to 
aid in the revocation of the biological father's LPR status. 
 
-------- 
DV FRAUD 
-------- 
 
¶11.  Educational qualifications continue to be a fraud concern for 
the DV.  Post has found an established fraud trend wherein 
applicants finish secondary school a decade before winning the DV, 
and the scores for their West African Examinations Council (WAEC) 
exam, usually taken at the end of their final year, are very poor. 
Flash forward to the present, when they win the DV lottery and 
decide to re-take the exam after some 'private tutoring.'  These 
scores are very strong, but when the applicant comes for his 
interview he knows nothing about the subjects in which he supposedly 
excelled just months before. We have had a number of applicants 
confess under questioning in the FPU that they had assistance in 
completing the exam; in some cases, they were assisted by a fellow 
test taker.  More alarmingly, in some cases they claim the test 
proctor read off the correct answers.  In such instances the 
documents are good and, were we to verify them, would be found 
legitimate, but the applicants have no claim to the scores on them. 
 
¶12.  Lagos also sees a large number of 'clip-ons,' spouses acquired 
after entering the DV lottery.  Many of these prove to be fraudulent 
relationships.  While FPU conducts some field visits to determine 
the validity of relationships, in many cases a simple split 
interview in the FPU offices suffices to verify relationships. 
 
¶13.  In one case, a young man who won the DV clipped on TWO spouses. 
 When asked about this in his interview, he stated that he met wife 
number two, who accompanied him to the interview, approximately 
three months before entering the DV, and he said that by the 
following January - a month after entering - he and this woman had 
'an understanding.'  All well and good, except that he married wife 
number one and clipped her on in February.  He claimed that wife 
number one died the following August, and in September he married 
wife number two. 
 
¶14. The interviewing officer sent the case up to FPU for a detailed 
split interview, where it became clear that the applicant and wife 
number two were not married at all.  It appears that wife number one 
was to be the 'bankroll,' a person who agrees to pay application 
fees and plane fares in exchange for being added to the application, 
and when it became clear to him that she was not going to provide 
the promised funds, he 'killed her off' on paper and found a new 
bankroll.  The primary applicant was found 6E for alien smuggling 
and wife number two 6C1 for material misrepresentation. 
--------- 
ACS FRAUD 
--------- 
 
¶15.  Financial scams - known as '419' scams after the section of the 
Nigerian penal code relating to financial crime - continue to be a 
huge issue for ACS.  The ACS Unit receives an average of 20 
inquiries daily through e-mail and telephone from American citizens 
as well as citizens from other countries who have been defrauded by 
Nigerians posing as romantic interests, Americans in distress, or 
lawyers trying to disburse a settlement or inheritance. Some of 
these American citizens have sent large sums of money to Nigeria. 
Unfortunately, all we can do is refer them to the Economic and 
Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria and the Secret Service in the 
United States. 
 
¶16.  The U.S. passport continues to be a highly coveted document. 
One recurring scenario is the first-time passport applicant who is 
in his late teens.  The applicant will provide a birth certificate 
for a child born in the United States, as well as perhaps an infant 
passport, or the passport of the purported mother with the child 
endorsed in it.  FPU does field investigations to verify the 
identity of the applicant as that listed on the birth certificate. 
 
¶17. Post also sees many applications for Consular Reports of Birth 
for the children of recently-naturalized male American citizens.  In 
order to qualify as an American citizen from birth, a child must be 
born after the American citizen has naturalized, and in some of the 
applications the timing is very close.  In one case, FPU 
investigators went to the hospital in question to verify the 
hospital documents the mother submitted as evidence of birth for the 
baby.  The investigators found that the registration number on the 
documents was in the hospital's records for another woman; the 
hospital records and birth certificate were not legitimately issued. 
 The parents had attempted to move the child's birth date forward in 
order for him to qualify for citizenship. 
 
-------------- 
ADOPTION FRAUD 
-------------- 
 
¶18.  Local courts continue to issue suspect adoption orders.  In 
order to be a valid adoption under Nigerian law, adoptive parents 
must fulfill certain requirements, including but not limited to 
three months of custody of the child prior to the adoption order, as 
well as a personal appearance in court on the day the adoption is 
finalized.  These requirements are frequently ignored by Nigerian 
courts, resulting in procedurally-invalid adoptions. 
 
¶19.  Starting in 2006, all adoptions coming through ConGen Lagos go 
a mandatory field investigation to ensure that the laws of Nigeria 
and the United States were followed during the adoption process. 
Our investigators conduct a home visit to see if the child is living 
with the appointed guardian or with the biological parents who have 
supposedly relinquished all parental rights, and they go to the 
court registrars to see if the order was actually issued by the 
court.  An analysis of the order itself can show whether or not the 
court followed its own procedures correctly. 
 
¶20.  In one particularly egregious case, a man came into the ACS 
section and submitted 144 applications for Social Security Numbers, 
along with 144 adoption orders, all supposedly completed by the same 
magistrate on the same day. These 144 children were purported to be 
the adoptive children of one man in the United States who had never 
traveled to Nigeria and had never met any of these children.  The 
man who brought the applications was listed on the adoptions as the 
lawyer for the American, though he admitted he was not in fact an 
attorney.  He also happened to be the biological father of three of 
the children.  Over the course of the interview, officers discovered 
that the American was a World War II veteran, and that these 
adoption orders were intended to allow these children to collect 
education benefits from the Veterans Administration as the children 
of a military veteran - at 588 dollars a month for each of the 144 
children, it comes to over a million dollars per year. 
 
¶21.  The adoptions were clearly procedurally invalid, since the 
'adoptive' father had never even met the children, so the Social 
Security applications were denied.  A visiting magistrate from the 
region in which the adoptions were conducted expressed surprise that 
the judge listed on the adoption order, whom she knew personally, 
would attach his name to such a clearly fraudulent enterprise. 
 
----------- 
DNA TESTING 
----------- 
¶22.  DNA testing has proven an invaluable tool in the deterrence of 
fraud.  There are many instances where the evidence of relationship 
that would allow officers to make their decisions is unreliable, 
destroyed, or simply not available. Family photography, aside from 
the occasional posed studio portrait, did not become widespread 
until the late 1970s and early 1980s, and birth certificates have no 
security features to speak of and can be obtained easily.  Officers 
request DNA testing fairly frequently.  The samples, in the form of 
cotton swabs, are collected by an IV LES at the clinic where the 
required visa medical examinations are conducted.  This is a duty 
that is rotated around the section.  The Consulate sends the samples 
to the laboratory, and the notarized results are returned directly 
back to the Consulate via courier. 
 
¶23.  Applicants who know their relationship is not bona fide, in 
general, do not follow through with the DNA testing.  In one case, a 
man came for a K-1 fiance visa.  He listed two children on his 
application, but said they lived with their mother - to whom he said 
he was never married - and would remain in Nigeria. The officer 
believed the fiance relationship and issued the K-1.  Shortly 
thereafter, he returned to the Consulate and stated that he wanted 
his oldest child to accompany him after all.  The officer was 
suspicious and during a subsequent interview for the child requested 
DNA, at which point the man said that he had changed his mind and 
would travel alone.  Fairly certain now that the man was attempting 
alien smuggling, the officer stated that the man's visa - on which 
he had not yet traveled - would be cancelled pending the outcome of 
the DNA testing.  Sure enough, the DNA results showed a 0% 
probability of paternity, and the man was refused under 6E for alien 
smuggling. 
 
--------- 
DHS FRAUD 
--------- 
 
¶24.  We continue to receive about ten requests a week for 
transportation letters from legal permanent residents who report 
their green cards lost or stolen.  Without DHS presence at post or 
access to their database, we struggle to confirm LPR status and 
whether the LPRs have a criminal record. 
 
¶25.  The FPU receives and processes investigation requests from 
USCIS District Adjudicating Officers to verify documents submitted 
for many different types of petitions in the United States. 
Recently, FPU was asked to verify the claims of two men who applied 
for asylum in the United States based on their membership in MASSOB, 
the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, 
which they describe as a persecuted underground organization.  In 
support of this claim, they submitted their membership cards and 
letters from their chapter secretary stating that they were members. 
Investigation showed that MASSOB is not, in fact, a clandestine 
organization, but rather a public organization with well-known 
leaders, and the cards and letters were forgeries; they used an 
incorrect logo. 
 
------------------------------- 
ALIEN SMUGGLING AND TRAFFICKING 
------------------------------- 
 
¶26.  In both the IV and NIV section we see frequent attempts at 
alien smuggling, whether through a sham marriage or the addition of 
an extra child.  In some cases it is merely a member of the extended 
family who simply does not have a legal claim to the immigration 
benefit.  However, in some cases, such as the DV clip-ons, there is 
a financial motivation; someone has agreed to pay in order to have 
that person added to an otherwise-legitimate application. 
 
¶27.  In some instances, the smuggling takes place because an 
applicant or American citizen believes the proper channels are too 
time-consuming.  In one IR-3 adoption case, the adopted child had 
actually been living in the United States for a number of years. 
After a lengthy interview with the American petitioner, who brought 
the child to the interview, the FPM pieced together the story.  The 
petitioner came to Nigeria for a child, whom she obtained from an 
organization that was subsequently discovered to be selling babies 
to prospective parents.  Instead of obtaining a proper visa for the 
child, she traveled to the Caribbean with the baby, endorsed on her 
Nigerian passport.  She and the child traveled first to St. Lucia, 
then to Puerto Rico, and finally took a domestic flight from Puerto 
Rico to Dallas-Fort Worth.  The American petitioner apparently used 
her connections at the airline where she works to get them to look 
the other way and allow her into the country with an undocumented 
child. 
 
----------------- 
DS INVESTIGATIONS 
----------------- 
 
¶28.  The consular section in general and the FPU in particular work 
closely with the ARSO/I recently assigned to Lagos.  Cases are 
referred to the ARSO/I from IV, NIV, and ACS units, with the 
referral documented in the notes for the case.  The ARSO/I has aided 
us in pursuing marriage fraud rings stateside through his U.S.-based 
DS contacts, and here in Lagos he has been pursuing the vendors of 
the fraudulent documents presented in interviews.  His close working 
relationship with the Special Fraud Unit of the Nigerian police has 
resulted in the arrest of a number of fraudulent applicants. 
Through spot reports he keeps the consular section informed of the 
outcomes of the referred cases.  The ARSO/I usually takes referrals 
directly from interviewing officers regarding instances of fraud 
that occur on a daily basis, while complex investigations that FPU 
has conducted are referred to the ARSO/I by the FPM.  ARSO/I and the 
FPM have a strong working relationship and often collaborate on 
interviews, investigations and training.  ARSO/I and FPM also 
benefit from the strong support of the Consular Chief and the 
Regional Security Officer. 
 
---------------------- 
HOST COUNTRY DOCUMENTS 
---------------------- 
 
¶29.  Nigeria recently updated its passport design to include a 
microchip like the one added to U.S. passports.  It includes 
holographic and UV-reactant features, and each visa page in the 
booklet has the passport number punched into the outside edge.  The 
older design is still valid and still in circulation; it consists of 
a biodata page encased in plastic, UV-reactant features, and the 
passport number punched into the top edge of the inside pages. 
 
¶30.  Civil documents, by contrast, have essentially no security 
features.  Marriage certificates vary widely in appearance; while 
they follow the same basic format, each local government authority 
has its own design.  Marriage certificates and birth certificates 
are both filled out by hand in ball point pen, and are printed on 
plain white paper.  These documents are incredibly easy to forge. 
In addition, controls and oversight in government offices are such 
that for sufficient payment a person can obtain virtually any 
government document from the source.  With very few exceptions, 
documents are taken with a grain of salt, and without verification 
by FPU that there is a corresponding entry in the logbook of the 
office that supposedly issued the certificate or court order, we 
consider most documents to be of very little value. 
 
--------------------------------- 
COOPERATION WITH HOST GOVERNMENT 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶31.  The FPU has enjoyed a strong relationship with the Nigerian 
Police Department for many years, referring cases to them where 
Nigerian laws have been broken.  The Special Fraud Unit has aided in 
the arrest of applicants who have presented fraudulent documents, as 
well as tracking down the document vendors. 
 
¶32.  The FPU has also enjoyed years of support from local 
governments, schools and marriage registries in our verifications of 
documents but lately, FPU investigators have been harassed by 
registrars to provide money for verifications, usually 2,000 Naira, 
the equivalent of about 17 dollars.  This is apparently a revenue 
collecting scheme on the part of the local government authorities. 
In some cases, the working relationship between the investigator and 
the registrar, with whom they have dealt before, has meant the 
registrar could be persuaded to waive the fee. 
 
--------------------- 
STAFFING AND TRAINING 
--------------------- 
 
¶33.  The FPU comprises FSO Fraud Prevention Manager Jennifer White, 
LES Fraud Investigator Supervisor Samuel Onuigbo, LES Fraud 
Investigator Roma Eyen, LES Fraud Investigator Adedamola Ajibade, 
LES Fraud Investigator Ijeoma Ndurue, LES Secretary Chinyere Harry, 
LES Fraud Analyst Samuel Olorunsogo and LES Data Specialist Fineboy 
Mark.  Ms. Ajibade completed the FSN Fraud Prevention Workshop in 
March and Ms. Eyen attended the regional consular FSN workshop in 
April. 
 
BLAIR