VZCZCXYZ0009
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHJL #0285/01 2661501
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 231501Z SEP 09
FM AMEMBASSY BANJUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8800
RUEHPNH/NVC PORTSMOUTH 0030
INFO RUEHFT/AMCONSUL FRANKFURT 1575

UNCLAS BANJUL 000285 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR CA/FPP 
DEPT ALSO PASS TO DHS 
FRANKFURT PASS TO RCO PACKOWITZ 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KFRD CVIS CPAS CMGT ASEC GA
SUBJECT: FRAUD SUMMARY - BANJUL, MAR - AUG 2009 
 
¶1.  Embassy Banjul submits the following fraud report covering March 
through August 2009.  Post notes, however, that Conoff arrived only 
in July 2009 and is just becoming familiar with consular work in The 
Gambia. 
 
a. COUNTRY CONDITIONS:  The Gambia, the smallest country on the 
mainland of Africa, relies heavily on tourism.  The high tourist 
season (November to April) is a time of greatly increased economic 
activity since many jobs depending on the tourist trade are 
seasonal.  Due to the global economic downturn, the number of 
tourists who visited The Gambia last year was down approximately 
20%.  There are fears that the upcoming season will be similarly 
slow, leading to a greater desire to emigrate and seek employment 
elsewhere.   The Consular Section has already seen a surge in NIV 
applications in August, where the number of interviews increased to 
713 from 557 in 2008. 
 
The downturn in tourism should not greatly affect ACS work.  The 
vast majority of tourists are European, since the hotels and beaches 
here are relatively unknown and expensive to reach from the U.S. 
The one event which does attract a number of Americans, the 
bi-annual Roots Festival, was scheduled for earlier this year but 
was postponed due to H1N1 flu fears and has yet to be rescheduled. 
The Gambian government is making an effort to attract more American 
tourism.  Post recently issued two visas to officials going to a 
series of tourism trade shows in the U.S. 
 
The majority of American citizens in The Gambia are dual national 
children with one or both parents in the U.S.  As noted in the 
previous fraud summary, poor economic conditions have led to 
increasing requests from such citizens for financial assistance to 
move to the U.S.  Since they are dual nationals and have resided 
here with extended family members for many years, they do not meet 
the conditions necessary for repatriation loans.  Yet many of these 
young citizens or their family guardians are unaware of this and 
believe that post will provide them with airline tickets to the U.S. 
 
 
Social structures in The Gambia differ greatly from the U.S. and 
complicate consular work.  People who are well off are expected to 
provide financial and other support for extended networks of family 
members and friends.  Few children grow up in what could be termed a 
traditional western nuclear family and many are informally adopted 
by relatives or friends who are financially more secure.  Many NIV 
applicants rely on sponsors who will pay for the trips, or their 
tuition in student visa cases, and who are often termed "uncles" 
although they may be more distant relatives or simply family 
friends.  The use of the term "brother" and "sister" to describe 
other relatives or close friends also complicates visa work and 
leads to many improperly filled out applications.   In most cases, 
diligent questioning by Conoff and the NIV staff resolve these 
complexities, but they can sometimes provide avenues for fraud. 
Sponsor-applicant relationships are difficult to verify and some 
exist solely to facilitate travel. 
 
b. NIV FRAUD:  Most NIV fraud is not sophisticated and resolves 
around fake documents.  Post has seen fake job letters, bogus 
invitations to conferences in the U.S. and forged academic records. 
The use of forged bank statements seems to be on the rise.  Post has 
noticed a number of these in the last few months, especially in 
support of student visa applications.  The banks here have been 
cooperative in verifying statements for us and collaboration between 
them, the section, RSO, and the local police has led to the arrest 
of two applicants who provided false statements.  A third case is in 
the works.  It is hoped that when word gets out that providing 
fraudulent bank statements can lead to arrest, the number of such 
cases will decline. 
 
Incidents of fraud are particularly high with group travel.  In one 
case, two Nigerians teaching in The Gambia posed as chaperones for 
12 Gambians who were supposed to present a play at a UN youth 
festival.  The Gambians were all supposed to be high school 
students, even though many were in their mid-twenties.  When 
questioned about the purpose of travel and the play they were 
supposed to present, many were unable to state more than that they 
were going to New York.  Three applicants recently posed are youth 
organizers for the opposition UDP party who were to accompany a 
senior UDP official on a fund-raising trip to the U.S.  Two of the 
three spoke no English, only tribal languages and none were able to 
describe their activities as youth organizers.  A check in ADIS also 
revealed that two of the three people who were given visas for a 
similar trip last year are still in the U.S. 
 
Another common problem is that people who qualify for visas and have 
good travel records attempt to facilitate the migration of others to 
the U.S.  Marriage certificates are easy to obtain - a couple only 
has to go the Muslim Kadi Court and declare that they are married - 
coupled with the fact that a Muslim man can have up to four wives, 
leads to cases in which a visa-holder marries simply to get the new 
wife a visa.  Others seek to travel with sons or other relatives who 
have previous refusals. 
 
Post also sees many applicants who wish to escort their American 
citizen nieces, nephews or other relatives back to their parents in 
the U.S.  Some of these requests are legitimate, but others are 
simply attempts to facilitate travel.  In any case, almost all of 
these applicants fail to overcome 214b.  A common thread here is 
that even if the document fraud or false statements were believed by 
the Section, many of the applicants would still fail to overcome 
214b. 
 
c. IV FRAUD:  Gambian IVs are processed in Dakar, but post does 
assist Embassy Dakar in investigations for Gambian IV applicants. 
Post also processes follow to join family members of refugees and 
asylees. 
 
d. DV FRAUD:  Post does not issue DVs but does answer requests for 
information concerning the lottery program. 
 
e. ACS AND PASSPORT FRAUD: The ACS workload has been low since 
Conoff came to post and no direct ACS fraud has been observed.  Most 
passport applicants are children born in the U.S. of Gambian 
parents.  Progression photos are used to confirm identity and PIERS 
is always checked to confirm the parents' signatures.  In CRIBA 
cases, the unreliability of local documents has led as a last resort 
to the use of DNA testing. 
 
f. ADOPTION FRAUD:  Post does not process adoption cases but does 
assist Dakar in investigating the few adoption cases that come out 
of The Gambia.  Fraud exists in many of these cases, including, 
unfortunately, the applications of two long-time Embassy Banjul LES 
for SIVs.  SIV status was granted, but at the request of Dakar, the 
Section investigated adoption certificates which both employees had 
submitted for derivative children.  The certificates were found to 
be fraudulent.  Dakar has submitted an Advisory Opinion concerning 
these cases and both posts are waiting for a response from 
Washington before proceeding any further.  Conoff has recently 
written a new SOP for Banjul SIVs to hopefully eliminate such cases. 
 The Consular Section Chief will examine all documents before the 
Ambassador makes his recommendation for SIV status.  If fraud is 
discovered, the Ambassador has the option of declining to recommend 
the status. 
 
g. USE OF DNA TESTING:  Post continues to use DNA testing in 
citizenship claims and Visas 92/93 cases.  The panel physician 
facilitates such requests.  The fact that many children are 
registered late, often right before an application begins, and that 
authentic but factually-incorrect documents can be easily obtained, 
leads to the frequent use of DNA testing.  A minority of tests come 
back negative, but in many cases the application is simply abandoned 
when DNA testing is mentioned. 
 
h. ASYLUM AND OTHER DHS BENEFITS: Post handles follow-to-join asylee 
and refugee cases and sees many situations where beneficiaries who 
are not actually offspring of the principal applicant are added to 
the case.  DNA testing weeds most of these out or causes them to 
abandon their application. 
 
i. ALIEN SMUGGLING, TRAFFICKING, ORGANIZED CRIME, TERRORIST TRAVEL: 
Embassy Banjul has not experienced any organized alien smuggling, 
trafficking, crime or terrorism rings to this date.  Alien smuggling 
is often attempted, but is done on a small scale.  The two examples 
cited above in the second paragraph on NIV Fraud being the largest 
examples. 
 
j. DS CRIMINAL FRAUD INVESTIGATIONS: Banjul is a small post in which 
most investigations are handled within the Consular Section. 
Nonetheless, the relationship between the Section and the RSO is 
strong and RSO has facilitated, through the use of their police 
contacts, the arrest of two NIV applicants who presented forged bank 
statements.  An RSO investigator also looked into two arrests made 
at the Banjul airport.  Local newspapers stated that the 
perpetuators had forged a U.S. travel document but it turned out 
that one had simply given the other his green card to try to enter 
the U.S.  FPP was apprised of the result of the case. 
 
k. HOST COUNTRY PASSPORT, IDENTITY DOCUMENTS, AND CIVIL REGISTRY: 
Marriage and birth certificates can be easily obtained at any time 
through the use of sworn affidavits.  Counterfeit documents are 
rarely seen since fraud is easily done through the acquisition of 
genuine but false documents.  GOG has recently introduced a new 
biometric national identification.  The card is much more secure 
than its laminated predecessor but lacks the holder's signature. 
The card is part of an ambitious project entitled GAMBIS through 
which GOG hopes to eventually issue biometric passports, driver's 
licenses and other civil documents. 
 
l. COORPERATION WITH HOST COUNTRY AUTHORITIES: Host country 
cooperation has improved.  Conoff has visited officials at the 
Medical and Health Department who promised increased assistance in 
verifying birth certificates.  A visit to the Cadi Court, a Muslim 
authority who handles the vast majority of marriage and divorce 
certificates, has led them to provide us with a number of expedited 
verifications.  The local police have also been cooperative in 
arresting applicants with false bank statements. 
 
m. AREAS OF PARTICULAR CONCERN:  visa fraud remains pervasive, but 
is primarily low caliber and individual.  Post is concerned that a 
skilled human trafficker could take advantage of the easy with which 
civil documents can be obtained here to commit visa fraud on a 
larger, more organized scale. 
 
n. STAFFING AND TRAINING: The FPU staff consists of Conoff and one 
part-time LES.  The LES is also the Section's visa clerk.  None of 
the staff in the Section have attended fraud training in the past 
six months.  The LES took a fraud training course in 2007.  Conoff 
has yet to take a fraud prevention course at FSI and hopes to do so 
in the beginning of next year. 
 
WELLS