VZCZCXRO7873
RR RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHDK #1238/01 2731139
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 301139Z SEP 09
FM AMEMBASSY DAKAR
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3131
INFO RUEHPNH/NVC PORTSMOUTH 0935
RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 DAKAR 001238 
 
DEPT FOR CA/FPP 
PARIS FOR DHS/ICE 
DEPT FOR KCC WILLIAMSBURG KY 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: CVIS KFRD CPAS CMGT ASEC SG
SUBJECT: SEMI-ANNUAL FRAUD SUMMARY - DAKAR 
 
REF: A) 08 STATE 74840;  B) DAKAR 388 
 
¶1.  The following is Embassy Dakar's semi-annual fraud reporting 
cable covering the period of March 1, 2009 to August 31, 2009. 
Responses are keyed to Ref A. 
 
¶2.  A. COUNTRY CONDITIONS: Senegal is a secular republic with a 
strong presidency, weak legislature, a compliant judiciary, and 
multiple weak political parties.  The country is predominantly rural 
with limited natural resources.  Between 60 and 70 percent of the 
Senegalese workforce relies on agriculture, either directly or 
indirectly, to earn a living.  In 2008, Senegal's growth rate fell 
from 4.8 percent to an estimated 2.5 percent, despite a good 
agricultural harvest.  The economy is highly vulnerable to 
variations in rainfall and fluctuations in world commodity prices. 
As a result, increasing numbers of young Senegalese are moving to 
the cities to seek employment.  With a 45 percent unemployment rate 
(and a very high underemployment rate), many Senegalese seek work 
opportunities in the U.S. and Europe.  In 2007, over 30,000 Africans 
- including many Senegalese - attempted to migrate to Europe via 
clandestine fishing boats bound for Spain's Canary Islands. 
 
Senegalese officials are addressing a difficult build-up of arrears 
owed to the private sector, which has contributed to the economy's 
slowdown, and likely even higher unemployment. 
 
The global economic crisis has begun to negatively impact Senegal as 
the cost for government and private financing has increased.  There 
are also strong indications that formal and informal remittances 
from Senegalese living and working overseas have begun to decrease. 
Since a single Senegalese worker in Europe or the U.S. can provide 
significant disposable income for an extended family, or even a 
small village, such a downturn could have very direct and negative 
impacts on poverty levels.  There is growing concern that high 
volumes of illegal narcotics are transiting through West Africa, in 
all likelihood including Senegal.  This dynamic also raises concerns 
about increasing levels and sophistication of corruption, money 
laundering, and other financial crimes which could exacerbate 
consular-related fraud in the region. 
 
Dakar is a high fraud post.  Senegal serves as a regional airline 
hub for West Africa, has daily direct flights to New York, 
Washington, and Atlanta, and is used by many West Africans to 
transit to the U.S.  It is relatively easy to obtain fraudulent 
civil documents, such as false birth and marriage certificates, not 
only in Senegal but also in neighboring countries.  Senegalese and 
other nationalities are also able to obtain genuine documents, 
including Senegalese passports, using false identities.  Imposters 
with authentic travel documents are a recurring problem. 
 
In general, Senegalese place a high value on extended kinship 
networks.  Affluent family members are expected to share their 
wealth, influence, and opportunities with all those who ask.  Many 
Senegalese, including wealthy ones, view travel to the U.S. as an 
opportunity to earn money to send home and/or obtain free medical 
care.  The obligation to family and friends typically trumps all 
other obligations in the Senegalese value system.  Many Senegalese 
genuinely believe that developed countries should (or even have an 
obligation to) accept more immigrants from Africa because of 
poverty.  Moreover, they do not believe that immigration from Africa 
causes any harm to developing countries.  As a result, many 
Senegalese see nothing wrong with submitting a fraudulent visa 
application or with assisting a family member or friend with a 
fraudulent application. 
 
¶B.  NONIMMIGRANT (NIV) FRAUD: The most common type of NIV fraud 
involves applicants submitting fraudulent documents as part of their 
B1/B2 visa applications.  These documents include false bank 
statements, invitation letters, employment letters, hotel 
reservations, and passport stamps.  The quality of the fraudulent 
documents is generally poor and, therefore, relatively easy to 
detect.  Mala fide applicants often submit similar, recognizable 
packets of false documents, leading Post to conclude that brokers 
are selling the documents to visa applicants. Consular officers 
routinely refuse these cases under INA section 214(b) rather than 
refer them to the Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU). 
 
NIV applicants use two primary tactics to hide past overstays in the 
U.S.: claiming to have lost the passport last used to travel; and 
obtaining genuine, but backdated Senegalese immigration entry and 
exit stamps.  As a result, adjudicating officers must carefully 
scrutinize applicants with previously issued NIVs.  Applicants often 
present passports with fake entry and exit stamps from Dubai, 
Morocco, Senegal, and China.  Access to ADIS has dramatically 
improved Post's ability to detect overstays. 
 
Post receives very few H1B applications and thus encounters little 
fraud in this area. 
 
DAKAR 00001238  002 OF 004 
 
 
 
¶C.  IMMIGRANT VISA (IV) FRAUD: Post processes IVs and Fiance Visas 
(K1 Visas) for the following countries: The Gambia, Guinea, 
Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, and Senegal.  Prior to May 2009, 
Post also processed IVs for residents of Sierra Leone; Embassy 
Freetown assumed processing of these cases during this reporting 
period.  Post processes Asylee/Refugee Following-to-Join family 
members (V92/93) for residents of Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. 
Adjudicating officers refer approximately 30 percent of these 
applications to the FPU.  Of the cases referred to the FPU, 
approximately 40 percent involve fraud. 
 
Relationship fraud is rampant in IV and K1 applications.  In all 
seven countries listed above, applicants can easily obtain genuine 
civil documents with false information and so DNA testing is often 
the only means to confirm a biological relationship.  DNA testing is 
used most often in IR2 or V92/93 cases, less so in IR5 cases. 
 
In addition, FPU has been particularly successful this year using a 
combination of CCD, LexisNexis, and Social Security records to 
reveal fraud connecting seemingly unrelated cases. 
 
Some CR1 and K1 applicants attempt to hide previous marriages to 
someone other than the petitioner, either by representing themselves 
as single or by producing false divorce certificates.  Fraud by 
applicants claiming to be single can sometimes be detected when a 
spouse is indicated in a previous NIV application or passport 
application in PIERS.  Those with false divorce documents often fail 
to terminate a marriage with an African spouse before petitioning 
for entry based on a relationship with an American spouse or fiance. 
 This is particularly problematic in this region, where polygamous 
marriages are common. 
 
Post rarely sees fraud by applicants for employment-based IVs. 
 
Though Post does not routinely question the petitioner's legal 
status in V92/V93 cases, during this reporting period Post sent two 
V92 files to the DHS Fraud Office with the recommendation that the 
petitioner's asylum status be re-examined.  During the V92 interview 
process Post found significant evidence which contradicted the 
asylees' claims. 
 
During the reporting period, Post returned 76 petitions to USCIS 
with the recommendation that they be revoked. 
 
¶D.  DV FRAUD: DV applicants frequently present forged high school 
degrees or, less frequently, falsified work records to qualify for 
DV status.  Because the issuance of Baccalaureate (college entrance 
exam) certificates is strictly controlled in Senegal, the majority 
of forged and counterfeit documents are easily detected. 
 
Although in the past, it has been difficult to verify WAEC (West 
African Examinations Council) diplomas in The Gambia, with the help 
of Embassy Banjul, Post has had greater success in identifying 
fraudulent Gambian DV claims. 
 
Educational documents in Guinea are all certified by a single person 
at the Ministry of Education, which makes these documents 
particularly vulnerable to fraud.  With the help of Embassy Conakry, 
Post has had success submitting "blind verifications" of these 
documents to the Ministry for authentication. 
 
Post also receives numerous DV cases in which the applicant marries 
immediately after being notified of winning the lottery; Post 
scrutinizes these alleged relationships closely.  In many of these 
"pop-up" spouse cases, the principal applicant applies alone, 
presumably attempting to defer scrutiny of the marriage until later 
in the DV season, after his or her visa is approved.  Post generally 
defers issuance to the principal applicant until the spouse appears 
for an interview. 
 
¶E.  ACS AND PASSPORT FRAUD:  While Post has experienced little 
evidence of fraud over the past six months in CRBA or passport 
applications, we do require DNA exams in a high percentage of our 
first-time, overseas birth cases. 
 
¶F.  ADOPTION FRAUD:  Post processes orphan adoption cases from six 
West African countries, having returned Sierra Leone cases - our 
most numerous - to Freetown in May 2009.  Post adjudicates a fair 
number of orphan adoptions from Gambia, and in most confirms the 
facts of the case via a field investigation conducted by Embassy 
Banjul. 
 
Post continues to experience a high rate of IR-2 adoption fraud.  In 
many West African cultures, families will take in and raise the 
children of their relatives, without undertaking a formal adoption. 
When the opportunity to immigrate arises later in life, they often 
attempt to document their extended relatives with fraudulent 
 
DAKAR 00001238  003 OF 004 
 
 
adoption decrees. 
 
¶G.  USE OF DNA TESTING:  Post uses DNA testing most frequently in 
IR2, family preference IVs, V92s, and CRBA cases.  Post also 
receives many DNA tests conducted prior to interview, often at the 
recommendation of USCIS.  Post is forced to discount the majority of 
these tests, given a lack of satisfactory evidence of 
chain-of-custody. 
 
¶H.  ASYLUM AND OTHER DHS BENEFITS FRAUD:  Most of post's V92/93 
cases involve applicants from Mauritania, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. 
Relationship fraud is rampant and DNA is often requested to confirm 
the relationship.  These cases are vulnerable to age fraud 
(representing an adult as a child under 21), due to the applicants' 
inability, at times, to acquire either birth certificates or 
passports in their country of origin. 
 
Embassy Dakar sees a steady stream of applicants who claim to have 
lost their I-551s (Green Cards).  Many of these cases involve 
applicants who have abandoned their legal permanent residence status 
by remaining outside of the U.S. for more than one year. 
 
When airport security suspects a passenger of document-related 
fraud, they will deny boarding and report the incident to the 
consular section.  These passengers then appear at Post to request 
that the Embassy authenticate their refugee travel documents or 
green cards. 
 
Post makes use of both ADIS and the DHS Forensic Documents 
Laboratory to request application images with which to verify 
documents and also to determine whether green card holders have 
departed the U.S. within the past year. 
 
¶I.  ALIEN SMUGGLING, TRAFFICKING, ORGANIZED CRIME, TERRORIST TRAVEL: 
 Post has seen little hard evidence of alien smuggling or 
trafficking among visa applicants.  While there are terrorist groups 
and organized crime in the region, this does not appear to affect 
our consular operations. 
 
¶J.  DS CRIMINAL FRAUD INVESTIGATIONS:  The Consular Section and RSO 
cooperate actively in fraud cases involving citizenship claims and 
other criminal issues.  The two offices exchange fraud-related 
information on a regular basis, taking advantage of each other's 
unique contacts and database access. 
During this reporting period the RSO and Consular Office continued 
to follow the case an American citizen arrested in Dakar for 
attempting to smuggle aliens into the U.S. (Ref B).  The American 
was sentenced to, and served, six months in Senegalese prison before 
being released in early September. 
 
¶K.  HOST COUNTRY PASSPORT, IDENTITY DOCUMENTS, AND CIVIL REGISTRY: 
Senegal issues four types of passports:  regular, diplomatic and 
official (passeport de service), and a special passport that is used 
exclusively for the Hajj (passeport pour le pelerinage).  There are 
at least two iterations of each passport that are currently valid 
and in circulation.  Regular, diplomatic, and official passports all 
contain 32 pages and an image of the Senegalese seal that is only 
visible under ultraviolet light.  All passports have separate book 
numbers and passport numbers.  In addition, at the end of December 
2007, Senegalese authorities began issuing regular passports 
containing an electronic chip. 
 
Diplomatic and official passports are often issued to non-diplomats 
and non-official travelers, such as prominent business owners and 
their families and religious leaders.  Post carefully interviews 
B1/B2 applicants holding these types of passports to determine visa 
eligibility. 
 
¶L.  COOPERATION WITH HOST GOVERNMENT AUTHORITIES:  The host 
government in Senegal cooperates well in fraud matters and requests 
for document verifications.  Nevertheless, because of the high 
incidence of fraud, post always submits "blind" verification 
requests, providing authorities with only a minimum of data on the 
document and requesting that the authorities provide the rest. 
 
In Senegal, not all forms of visa fraud are regarded as serious 
offenses and even government officials are at times willing to use 
their positions to help friends and relatives obtain visas.  While 
the GOS does prosecute serious perpetrators, particularly foreign 
scam artists, it will often drop criminal charges if the perpetrator 
pays restitution to his/her victims. 
 
¶M.  AREAS OF PARTICULAR CONCERN: K1, CR1, and IR1 visa fraud are 
very common in Senegal.  Almost 80 percent of K1 applicants are 
referred to the FPU for investigation and approximately 30 percent 
are returned to the Department of Homeland Security with a 
recommendation for revocation.  Advance fee fraud and dating scams 
are common in Senegal and Post regularly receives emails or calls 
 
DAKAR 00001238  004 OF 004 
 
 
from Amcits who have fallen victim to the scam. 
 
¶N.  STAFFING AND TRAINING: 
 
1) Matilda Gawf, Vice-Consul, part-time Fraud Prevention Manager 
(FPM).  No formal fraud prevention training. 
 
2) Consular Associate, Eric Redd (FPC) arrived December 2008.  No 
formal fraud prevention training. 
 
3) Moussa Sy, Locally Engaged Staff, part-time Local Fraud 
Investigator.  Attended FSI fraud training in Fall 2007. 
 
SMITH