VZCZCXRO8640
PP RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHCN
DE RUEHBI #0367/01 2111453
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P R 291453Z JUL 08
FM AMCONSUL MUMBAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6467
INFO RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 7706
RUEHCG/AMCONSUL CHENNAI 1832
RUEHCI/AMCONSUL KOLKATA 1637
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 0799
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU 0615
RUEHGO/AMEMBASSY RANGOON 0010
RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 0001
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 0119
RUEHGP/AMEMBASSY SINGAPORE 0126
RHMFIUU/DHS IP BP WASH DC
RHMFIUU/FBI WASHINGTON DC
RUEHBI/AMCONSUL MUMBAI 1602

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MUMBAI 000367 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR CA/FPP AND CA/VO/F/P 
POSTS FOR FRAUD PREVENTION MANAGERS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: CVIS SOCI KCRM KFRD IN
SUBJECT: R VISAS -- FRAUD IN THE NAME OF GOD 
 
REF: A) 08 CHENNAI 149, B) 07 CHENNAI 487, C) 07 KOLKATA 73, D) CHENNAI'S R-1 HANDBOOK 2008 
 
¶1.   (SBU) SUMMARY.  Post Mumbai detects significant fraud among 
applicants for Religious Worker (R-1) visas.  Mumbai refused 
nearly 52% of all applicants seeking R-1 religious worker visas 
in CY 2007.  Following aggressive FPU investigations in Gujarat 
and Maharashtra States, CY2008 R-1 visa refusals to date have 
climbed to nearly 70%.  Although visa fraud is not confined to 
any one religion, as Chennai and Kolkata noted in refs A and C, 
Sikhs and Tibetan refugees have the highest percentage of 
religious visa applicants with confirmed fraud.  Post recorded 
negligible Hindu or Catholic-centric fraud.  Using all tools at 
its disposal, the FPU thwarted fraudulent applicants purportedly 
from Sikh and Buddhist organizations from obtaining visas. 
Fraud occurred both in India and the United States with fraud 
involving primarily U.S. organizations the most difficult to 
detect. Current standard fraud prevention practices at Post, in 
cooperation with New Delhi, Kolkata and under the leadership of 
FPU Chennai, are highly effective in preventing fraud in a 
majority of R-1 visa cases.  DHS and CA/FPP have provided 
valuable support in investigating real and bogus religious 
organizations in the United States.  Technology tools, such as 
Watch Phrase and Text Search, have proved invaluable in 
combating fraud.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) In CY 2007, Post adjudicated 694 R-1 visas and refused 
over 52%.  In CY 2008, Post has adjudicated 479 R-1 visas to 
date and refused over 69%.  Of these, 30% were found permanently 
ineligible to enter the United States for willful 
misrepresentation of material facts.  In addition, Post has 
refused 35% of the 52 R-2 visa applications in CY 2008.  These 
numbers reflect a consistent trend in refusal percentages for 
the last five years. 
 
¶3.  (U) Post has a unique blend of religious applicant sources, 
including several Swaminarayan sects in Gujarat; major 
International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) temples 
in Mumbai and Gujarat; and Catholic and Christian missionaries 
in Mumbai and in Goa.  Post's R-1/R-2 applicant pool is roughly 
one third Hindu, one third Sikh, with the rest split among 
Catholics, Buddhists and Muslims. 
 
------------------------------------ 
SIKH PRIESTS OR INTENDING IMMIGRANTS 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Post refused over 90% of Sikh "priests" seeking R-1 
visas, by far the most egregious fraud pattern at Post.  (Note: 
9 FAM 41.58 recognizes chiefly religious workers who have been 
ordained or who have taken sacred vows.  A Sikh Granthi is not a 
priest and has not taken vows, but for all intents and purposes, 
his job is very "priestly."  Granthis are the closest Sikhs have 
to people doing R-1 eligible work.  There are more varieties of 
religious worker than the FAM has accounted for.  End note.)  In 
almost every case, applicants had no claim to residency within 
Post's consular district.  These applicants usually came in 
threes and all were "Ragis" or Sikh religious singers; were born 
in North India; had passports issued in North India; and usually 
paid their visa processing fees in a northern Indian state. 
Examples include BMB 2007330904 0003/4/5 and BMB 2007337569 
0002/3/4. 
 
¶5.  (U) In some cases, the fraud originated solely from the 
applicants themselves, without collusion from anyone outside of 
India (BMB2007341968 1/2/3 and 20072883430013-15; 2007 304 778 
001/2).  Checks with the alleged sponsoring organizations in the 
United States confirmed that the letters were fraudulent.  The 
American organizations' management and trustees were uniformly 
angered by the fraud and wished to take action against the 
touts.  In other cases, the Indian Sikh gurudwara itself or its 
officials aided and abetted fraudulent visa applicants.  For 
example, two groups of 3 Sikhs claimed they were employed with 
Gurudwara Akali Dal or with Gurudwara Guru Singh Sabha, both in 
Mumbai. FPU field investigation trips to the two temples 
confirmed active collusion by a temple employee. 
 
¶6.  (U) The most difficult Sikh religious worker fraud to 
investigate usually involved collusion and fraud from both 
Indian and U.S. sides.  Ruse calls to the Indian "employers" and 
 
MUMBAI 00000367  002 OF 004 
 
 
the sponsoring religious organizations in the U.S. were answered 
by a friend or a visa "consultant" who was coached and prepared 
to provide supporting information.  In one case a Lexis/Nexis 
search revealed that phone numbers submitted by 3 R1 visa 
applicants (BMB 2007331 221 9/10/11) were last registered to an 
insurance company.  When questioned, one applicant confessed 
that a "visa consultant" provided false documents from the 
United States and India to support their cases. In other cases, 
(BMB 20073309100011, 20073309160009, 20073309170001), letters 
were forged on letterheads that closely resembled those of 
legitimate U.S. organizations.  Visa touts in the United States 
may have worked in collusion with agents in India.  Post 
conducted several field fraud investigations in Maharashtra 
State on October 12 and November 6, 2007.  All 18 cases 
investigated were found to be fraudulent.  The FPU spoke with 
representatives of 11 Sikh Gurudwaras from which applicants 
claimed to have come.  Almost universally, gurudwara officials 
were shocked that someone had appropriated or forged their 
letterhead for mala fide purposes.  In all cases, Post collected 
letterhead and signature exemplars for later use and encouraged 
organizations to call ahead when sending bona fide applicants. 
Post maintains and can share lists of gurudwaras in the district 
and the names of their legitimate employees. 
 
----------------------------------- 
BAD MONK, FAKE MONK: BUDDHIST FRAUD 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Most Buddhist clergy seen in Mumbai are Tibetans. 
They hold refugee status in India and they cannot hold Indian 
citizenship.  Because male Tibetans usually cannot work in 
India, monasteries are a welcome alternative to poverty.  Not 
all monks are motivated by poverty, however.  Embassy Kathmandu 
uncovered a "bad" monk who attempted to set up a human 
trafficking network from Nepal to the United States (ref D); a 
similar smaller case was recently exposed in Chennai (ref D). 
In India, many displaced Tibetan Buddhists reside in colonies 
established by the Indian government.  Residents there 
frequently establish monasteries.  Post has found that 
applicants from these Tibetan colonies are frequently 
unqualified either for R-1 or B1-B2 visas. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Post refused visas to more than 67% of "Tibetan monks" 
who applied for R-1 visas in FY 2008.  Fraud involving 
applicants masquerading as legitimate Buddhist monks originated 
from both the United States and India.  The office of the Dalai 
Lama can verify the monks and FPU uses this resource routinely. 
 The Dalai Lama's office is very responsive. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) In some cases, applicants colluded with sources 
outside of India (Case # BMB 20080080/002-006 and 
20080181290007/0008/0009/0010). They had elaborate documents 
patterned on legitimate documents previously sent from the 
United States.  Biometrics showed one applicant was refused 
previously in New Delhi when he applied a year ago 
misrepresenting that he worked in a different monastery.  The 
U.S. organizations subsequently denied inviting the applicants 
to work in the United States.  The fake letterheads and visa 
application forms listed false phone numbers to circumvent a 
line of inquiry.  A reverse lookup of the telephone numbers for 
the Indian monasteries and a text search on their addresses 
revealed that separate applicants had used the same address and 
phone numbers for their Indian monasteries. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) The most complex cases involved fraud originating in 
the United States.  In some cases, investigation of the U.S. 
sponsor revealed the alleged temple phone number was a residence 
or a business establishment (BMB 200803118410, 20083118411, 
20083118412 20080311851.)  ADIS records showed previous 
applicants issued visas to go to same organization had extensive 
overstays, both on B1 and R1 status.  Moreover, the sponsoring 
organization had no verifiable track record of being a credible 
outfit on any public database (BMB 200733752600 10/11/12/13). 
Lexis/Nexis showed a physical address that belonged to unrelated 
people, while Dun and Bradstreet records had no record of the 
name or address or phone number of the organizations.  Websites 
provided by the inviting organizations led to "free park" pages, 
which had nothing to do with an independent organization. 
 
MUMBAI 00000367  003 OF 004 
 
 
 
---------------------- 
HINDU SECTS AND SWAMIS 
---------------------- 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Recent CA guidance clarified that Hindu temple 
carvers and architects are considered religious workers (ref D). 
 Temple concrete pourers and temple plasterers (including 
craftsmen who sculpt in plaster) are not.  Temple cooks, or 
pachakahas, prepare food in Hindu temples.  They are Brahmins, 
and they cook offerings for the gods.  They typically inherit 
their jobs from their fathers who did it before them.  They are 
not ordained, and they do not take sanctified vows.  But their 
food for the gods is an essential element of worship.  Their 
work is part of habitual religious practice.  Their eligibility 
for the R1 is currently valid (ref D).  Consular officers at 
post do, however, often experience difficulty assessing these 
workers' bona fides. 
 
¶12. (U) In October 2007, Post conducted a field investigation in 
the state of Gujarat to catalogue and verify the existence of 
various temples of the Swami Narayan sect of Hinduism.  Before 
the investigation, Post contacted trustees of the Yogi Divine 
Society in Sokhada, Gujarat and the Swaminarayan temple 
organization headquartered in Kalupur and Vadtal, Gujarat State, 
to confirm procedures for verifying bona fide applicants. A 
large and legitimate branch of ISKCON also operates out of 
Mumbai. 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Post maintains one nominally Hindu organization in 
CCD's watchphrase tool: the cunning and adaptive Gaudiya 
Vaisnava Society (GVS), also known as the Sri Ram Temple, in 
Milwaukee, WI.  Post Kolkata had previously conducted an 
investigation of the organization in West Bengal and uncovered a 
major fraudulent operation (ref C).  While in 2007 all Posts in 
India issued visas to R-1 and R-2 applicants from this 
organization, many recent applicants were refused thanks to 
Kolkata's investigation and DHS/ICE reports. 
 
 
------------------------- 
CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS 
------------------------- 
 
¶14.  (U) Post's Christian applicants came in one of two 
varieties: priests from Catholic parishes across the district 
and Protestants.  Catholics constitute over 90% of R-1 
applicants and mainly come from the city of Mumbai and the 
neighboring state of Goa.  Their supporting documents were 
always inclusive and the strict hierarchy of the church made 
impersonation difficult and imposters rare.  Well established 
procedures and paperwork accompany applicants.  Post's excellent 
relations with Catholic parishes in western India helped to 
quickly clarify any questions that occasionally arose in a R-1 
Catholic applicant's case.  Post encountered no Catholic-centric 
fraud in CY 2007. 
 
------------------ 
TOOLS OF THE TRADE 
------------------ 
 
¶15.  (SBU) Post uses comprehensive methods to verify the bona 
fides of U.S. religious organizations and the signatures on 
invitation letters.  These include PIERS records to compare 
American passport application signatures with invitation letter 
signatures, and using LexisNexis to verify the existence and 
whereabouts of American-based sponsors.  The verification of 
India-based organizations, supporting websites, and all 
documents purporting to support a religious application are a 
critical part of all R-1 and R-2 adjudications. 
 
¶16.  (SBU) CA's Office of Fraud Prevention Programs (FPP) should 
be lauded for its contribution towards fighting religious worker 
visa fraud at Post Mumbai.  CA/FPP has given Posts enhanced 
technological tools that aid fraud busting.  For example, CCD 
tools such as Watch Phrase Management and Text Search have been 
extraordinarily valuable in exposing religious worker fraud 
patterns at Post.  Access to databases such as Lexis/Nexis has 
 
MUMBAI 00000367  004 OF 004 
 
 
been critical in evaluating religious organizations in the U.S. 
that sponsor R-1 applicants.  Several successful examples cited 
in the body of this cable were direct outcomes from use of these 
technologies.  CA/FPP has played a key role in investigating 
invitations from the United States.  In many instances, it has 
determined them to be fraudulent.  Most importantly, the CA/FPP 
has been a valuable resource to detect and deter visa fraud and 
to synergize fraud prevention activities.  Weaving investigative 
findings from different databases and the internet with data 
mined from the CCD, and cross referencing that with ADIS records 
and telephone verifications, CA/FPP's Post liaison synthesized 
data from multiple sources into comprehensive reports that Post 
can act upon.  Post could not have uncovered the full extent of 
the R-1 fraud pattern at Post without the innovative stateside 
investigations by CA/FPP. 
 
¶17. (SBU) COMMENT:  Although religious visas constitute a small 
fraction of the overall applications received at Post Mumbai, 
the R visa category constitutes the highest percentage of 
fraudulent applicants.  The FPU in Mumbai, in collaboration with 
other FPUs in India and CA/FPP, will continue to pay particular 
attention to R-1 applicants and use the excellent resources and 
tools available and the team's experience to combat future 
religious visa fraud.  END COMMENT. 
FOLMSBEEPA