VZCZCXYZ0029
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHUJA #0561/01 0920623
ZNR UUUUU ZZH (CCY ADX4BD0A0 MSI6512 540A)
R 020623Z APR 09 ZDS
FM AMEMBASSY ABUJA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5648
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHPNH/NVC PORTSMOUTH 0042

UNCLAS ABUJA 000561 
 
C O R R E C T E D  C O P Y - CLASSIFICATIONS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR CA/FPP 
DEPT PASS TO KCC WILLIAMSBURG KY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KFRD CVIS CPAS CMGT ASEC NI
SUBJECT: FRAUD SUMMARY - ABUJA 
 
REF: 08 STATE 071476 
 
¶1.  Following is post's semi-annual fraud reporting cable for the 
period September 2008 to February 2009, per reftel instructions. 
 
------------------ 
COUNTRY CONDITIONS 
------------------ 
 
¶2.  Background:  Nigeria covers 356,700 sq miles and has a 
population of approximately 145 million. The major languages are 
English (official), Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa.  The most recent (2007) 
per capita GDP is $1,500 USD, and the inflation rate (2008) is 8.5%. 
 Approximately 54% of the population lives below the poverty line 
(on less than $1 per day).  This high poverty rate coupled with 
population pressure creates a situation that drives out-migration. 
Large Nigerian expatriate communities in the United States present 
considerable familial and financial incentives to both visit and/or 
remain. 
 
¶3.  Nigeria has very limited internal controls on the issuance 
of all manner of civil documents, including international passports. 
This lack of control, coupled with the high level of bribery that 
permeates every level of society, creates an environment where 
potentially anything and everything is available for sale. With an 
enormous desire for visas as an escape route and documents that 
cannot be trusted, Abuja is inarguably a high-fraud post. The volume 
of applicants and rate of refusal has created a dynamic market for 
fraudulent applications and supporting documents that are, given 
local conditions, relatively sophisticated and highly adaptive to 
counter-measures. 
 
--------- 
NIV FRAUD 
--------- 
 
¶4.  The NIV Unit continues to see a wide variety of fraudulent 
documents submitted to create the impression of an established 
travel history as well as financial and familial stability. 
 
The largest and most common fraud is simple document fraud.  Fake 
employment letters, bank statements, conference registrations and 
educational certificates are found on a daily, almost hourly basis 
during line work.  Post continues to expand and update a library of 
signature samples and exemplars of commonly presented documents, 
particularly financial documents, for the purposes of verifications. 
 
 
Post continues to aggressively pursue a program for discovery and 
prosecution (arrest referral) of applicants holding fraudulent third 
country visas and fake entry stamps. 
 
By collecting and disseminating detection points and equipment 
(loops and UV lights) to line officers, post has discovered over 30 
such cases of third country visa fraud since September 2008 alone. 
Working in tandem with RSO, over 25 of these cases have ended in the 
arrest of the applicants by the Special Fraud Unit of the Nigerian 
Police.  All face prosecution under local fraud statutes. 
 
These fake third country visas run the gamut of counterfeiting 
tactics and print sophistication.  In some of these cases the 
applicant was able to effect travel to the target country using the 
fraudulent document.  Genuine civil and identity documents are 
relatively easy to acquire by fraudulent means here in Nigeria, but 
falsifying a record of foreign travel remains more difficult.  As 
such, these TCN visas remain one of the most consistently reliable 
mechanisms for detecting fraudulent applicants and applications. 
 
Examples have included multiple instances and iterations of fake 
South African visas including fraudulent use of genuine South 
African foil blanks, a fact confirmed by the South African High 
Commission.  Post has also seen seven confirmed cases of Schengen 
and UK counterfeiting, some wholly fabricated, some washed and 
photo-substituted, and all supported by falsified entry and exit 
stamps.  Post has recently seen 2 cases of genuine Swiss foils which 
were part of a batch of stolen blanks, one of which had an altered 
visa foil number.  Both included fake Swiss entry and exit stamps. 
 
Chinese, Australian, Indian, Malaysian, Turkish, Kenyan, Equatorial 
Guinean, and Brazilian fake visas have all also been discovered at 
post, and most of these on multiple occasions. In many cases, 
applicants admit in secondary interviews by FPU to having paid 
substantial sums, in one case several thousand U.S. dollars, for the 
visas. In other cases, applicants contend the visas were provided in 
exchange for favors, to be determined upon issuance. 
 
Post maintains a fairly extensive exemplar library of these finds, 
scanned and ready to share with other missions and agencies on 
request.  Post continues to strengthen ties to other Missions in the 
 
community in order to verify suspicious documents. 
 
FR, IDENT and IAFIS continue to be invaluable assets for fraud 
prevention and detection work in Abuja.  The introduction of 
biometric security measures has made it very difficult for 
applicants to run from prior applications, identities, and criminal 
histories.  The NIV Unit has several cases each week where systems 
hits are sufficiently close to merit re-interview.  Many such hits 
appear post-adjudication.  These cases are processed after Advisory 
Opinion concurrence from CA/VO/A as material misrepresentations for 
a finding of 212(A)(6)(C)(i). To further discourage identity fraud, 
Abuja refers these identity fraud cases to the Special Fraud Unit of 
the Nigerian Police for arrest and prosecution. 
 
¶5.   R1 Fraud:  With the implementation of the petition 
requirement for R1 religious worker visas, Post has seen a 
substantial drop in the number of R1 applications.  Fraud in this 
category of visa continues to be a concern however, the decrease in 
R1 applications has reduced the sheer amount of fraud. 
 
¶6.   F1 Fraud:  Student visas remain a popular target for 
those seeking entry to the U.S.  Counterfeit West African 
Examination Council (WAEC) certificates continue to be a tactic for 
fraudulent students looking to establish their bona fides.  The 
number of fakes has decreased, however, as WAEC has instituted an 
online means of score verification.  Perhaps as a related result, 
post has noticed an increase in fraudulent transcripts from Nigerian 
polytechnics however, such fake transcripts are usually exposed by 
the low quality of the work and the applicant's lack of knowledge of 
the subject matter. 
 
This reporting period, post also saw a number of highly 
sophisticated fake SAT score reports.  Several of these reports are 
difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish from legitimate SAT 
reports if not for the discrepancy between the fraudulent score and 
the applicant's complete lack of knowledge of the subject matter. 
At least one applicant admitted to the scam at reinterview and 
provided details as to individuals involved.  This information was 
relayed to FPU Lagos and ARSO-I Lagos for further action due to the 
provenance of the fake reports in Lagos' Consular district.  Post 
maintains a library of these finds and can forward exemplars on 
request. 
 
--------- 
NIV VALIDATION STUDY 
--------- 
 
¶7.  Post is currently working on two validation studies for A 
visas and visas issued through Class A and B Referrals.  These are 
the first validation studies of these two categories since full NIV 
services commenced in Abuja in September of 2006. 
 
Post has compiled the information for these studies using the 
methodology standardized by CA/FPP and the reporting functions of 
CCD and the AdHoc system to generate the appropriate reports.  The 
reports have been submitted to the ADIS/USVISIT system through the 
appropriate channels and post is now awaiting the results. 
 
 
--------- 
ACS FRAUD 
--------- 
 
¶8.  Financial scams - known as '419' scams, after the section of 
the Nigerian penal code relating to financial crime - continue to be 
an issue for ACS and a major burden to the correspondence unit at 
post. The ACS Unit receives a daily average of 13 inquiries through 
e-mail and telephone from Amcits 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 Amcits have sent large sums 
of money to Nigeria. In such cases, post has little it can offer to 
victims by way of assistance beyond referring them to local 
authorities, U.S. consumer advocate groups, and advising victims to 
immediately halt communications and monetary transfers to the 
scammers. 
 
¶9.  The U.S. passport continues to be a document highly coveted 
by perpetrators of fraud. One recurring scenario is the first-time 
passport applicant who is in his/her late teens or early twenties. 
The applicant will provide a birth certificate for a child born in 
the U.S., as well as perhaps an infant passport, or the passport of 
the purported mother with the child endorsed in it. FPU performs 
field investigations to verify the identity of the applicant as that 
listed on the birth certificate where possible and appropriate. 
 
¶10.  Post also occasionally sees applications for Consular 
Reports of Birth Abroad (CRBA) for the children of male Amcits. 
Many of these individuals have divorced a previous wife and 
 
remarried a Nigerian, yet continue to reside in the U.S. 
Establishing paternity and proving the minimum of five years of 
physical presence in the U.S. can be difficult.  In some cases the 
timing is very close and the sequence of events suspect. 
Questionable cases are referred to FPU for investigation. 
 
 
---------------------- 
HOST COUNTRY DOCUMENTS 
---------------------- 
 
¶11.  Post continues to find bio-substituted Nigerian passports 
on a regular basis.  The relative ease with which Nigerians can 
acquire breeder documents means that even legitimate issuances of 
the latest Nigerian passports are vulnerable to fraud and 
misrepresentation.  In a few cases, post has discovered photo- and 
bio-substituted passports that have apparently been renewed in the 
form of genuine issuances of the latest, and ostensibly most secure, 
Nigerian passport. 
 
Post has found 3 cases of the regular (green) pre-E series passport 
which contain biodata pages from the official (blue) passport. 
Officers on the line spot these with ease and these cases are 
confirmed fraudulent with the Nigerian Immigration Service and 
referred to SFU for prosecution. 
 
Post has found numerous cases in which the new E series passports 
have serious quality control issues, i.e. lack of laminate on the 
biodata page.  Each case is referred for verification to the 
Nigerian Immigration Service and in cases involving legitimate 
quality control problems applicants are required to obtain a new E 
series passport.  An updated dossier on E series detection points is 
available from post on request. 
 
As a result of these continuing problems with Nigerian passport 
security, Post continues to review all passports using the AssureID 
document checker. 
 
¶12.  Civil documents in Nigeria, 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. Certificates of incorporation 
and tax clearances are similarly unreliable. These documents are 
incredibly easy to forge, and most agencies and government 
departments still maintain no centralized register for 
verifications. Banks are marginally more advanced in this regard, 
and post now has a full range of current authorized signatures for 
all of the major financial institutions. 
 
Controls and oversight in GON offices are such that for sufficient 
payment a person can obtain virtually any government document from 
the source. With very few exceptions, we consider most documents to 
be of very little value to the adjudicative process unless they are 
demonstrably fraudulent. 
 
--------------------- 
STAFFING and TRAINING 
--------------------- 
 
¶13.  The FPU consists of one part-time FSO Fraud Prevention 
Manager, who also works as NIV Line Officer, and recently, the 
addition of one full-time LES Consular Investigator. The new 
investigator has been an invaluable addition, particularly in 
conducting verifications and investigations, and developing local 
contacts in law enforcement.  Post has recently developed an FPU 
Travel Plan for FY2009 to establish a schedule for investigations to 
be conducted by the Consular Investigator.  The first six months of 
investigations have been completed and additional investigations 
scheduled as they arise.  As recommended in the recent OIG report, 
post has conducted joint LES Consular Investigator and Consular 
Officer fraud field investigations. 
 
¶14.  The addition of new investigative resources to Consular 
Section Abuja has also helped our collective mission to clear 
Northern Nigerian investigative cases more quickly.  In March, the 
Abuja Consular Investigator completed the requisite course at FSI 
for LES Consular Investigators, sponsored by CA/FPP at FSI. 
 
Recently, the investigator completed two investigative trips in 
tandem with the ACS Chief.  Consular traffic and services continue 
to expand in Abuja, and Post has seen an increase in the number of 
requests for document verification from Lagos' FPU and DHS.  The 
availability of in-house investigative staff permits post to 
maintain the integrity and efficiency of our processing efforts. 
 
The Abuja FPU is compiling a Consular Factbook as part of training 
for newly arrived officers.  This book provides information on the 
 
cultural context crucial to effective NIV interviewing.  This 
factbook is still in its infancy but additional chapters are 
planned. 
 
-------------------- 
LIAISON and OUTREACH 
-------------------- 
 
¶15.  Post has also made significant progress in establishing 
new working relationships with host government agencies and other 
missions in order to further our fraud prevention initiatives. 
 
Post continues to pursue an aggressive policy of referring confirmed 
cases of sophisticated identity and document fraud (particularly TCN 
visas and passports) to the local detachment of Nigeria's Special 
Fraud Unit (SFU), an agency of the national police force.  While the 
SFU has been particularly responsive in apprehending fraudulent 
applicants, police have offered little information or evidence 
regarding these cases post-arrest.  FPU Abuja has consistently asked 
SFU to provide records of arrest for all cases referred, and to 
report regularly on progress of these cases for prosecution. 
Despite over 20 on-site arrests since September, post has yet to 
confirm a single conviction. 
 
There appears little evidence that SFU has coordinated these 
investigations in aims of finding and prosecuting the purveyors of 
the counterfeit visas and passports.  In a few cases, post has 
reason to suspect that despite definitive evidence of fraud, charges 
were never filed, the implication being that bribes had been paid to 
resolve the matter.  SFU has made no efforts to raise the profile of 
these arrests in the media, further clouding the utility of arrest 
referrals is discouraging the use of fake visas and passports by the 
general population. In tandem with Abuja's RSO and the ARSO-I in 
Lagos, post continues to monitor and review the arrest program.  On 
a very positive note, Post has noticed a reduction in the number of 
applicants who present fake TCN visas, a fact that Post has 
attributed to the inception of this cooperation with SFU. 
 
Post has one example in which an applicant applied for a Swiss visa 
using a passport containing a fake visa from Equatorial Guinea.  The 
Swiss confiscated the passport and returned it to the MFA.  This 
same applicant has now applied for a US visa using the same 
confiscated passport, evidenced by the Swiss stamp in the passport. 
The Swiss Embassy has confirmed the facts of this case. While this 
case does not involve the SFU, it raises concerns about the lack of 
seriousness with which the use of fraudulent documents in general is 
viewed by Nigerian authorities. 
 
Beyond local authorities, the FPM has made a series of courtesy 
calls to a variety of other diplomatic missions and host country 
offices to exchange information, detection points and exemplars on a 
bilateral basis.  The Fraud Prevention Unit also organized a 
Consular Club of Abuja in order to encourage regular communication 
in the Consular community about issues of concern, particularly 
fraud.  The FPU hosted the first meeting which hosted approximately 
30 individuals from a variety of Missions and included a talk from 
the director of the SFU.  This club is organized to be 
self-perpetuating, meeting every other month and hosted by a 
different Mission each time in order to involve the greatest number 
of interested Missions. 
 
 
¶16.  Post continues to work productively working collaboration 
with both the Lagos FPU and their affiliated ARSO-I.  Abuja's FPU is 
now contributing information and exemplars to Lagos' FPU and ARSO-I 
to aid in ongoing investigations and begin new ones. 
 
¶17.  Beyond the local mission community, FPU Abuja 
disseminated a fraud report containing fraud finds that were new and 
different.  This 'fraud file' shared detailed, image-based analyses 
of fraud cases with regional (primarily West African) posts and 
others that have large Nigerian expatriate applicant populations, 
such as London and Johannesburg.  Post has not created such a report 
recently due to the reduction in fake TCN visas, and particularly 
the lack of new and different exemplars to share. 
 
SANDERS