WIKILEAKS - Visa racket vibrant

At least two civil servants among the many Jamaicans found with fraudulent documents at US Embassy visa windows in 2009. Shady Jamaicans kept the Fraud Prevention Unit (FPU) at the United States Embassy in Kingston very busy in 2009 with a large number of visa rackets being unravelled.

Two of the cases mentioned by the US Embassy in a secret diplomatic cable, dated October 2009, reportedly involved an employee of the Passport Immigration and Citizenship Agency (PICA) and a member of the Jamaica Fire Brigade.

According to the Americans, the immigration officer was fired after investigations by its FPU revealed discrepancies on her letter of employment.

"In addition to overstating her salary allowance, this applicant also forged the signature of PICA's former director of human resources, who was no longer at the agency at the date her employment was supposedly signed," the cable said.

The case involving the fireman reportedly embarrassed the brigade and caused the then acting commissioner to call the US Embassy and apologise.

"Another NIV (non-immigrant visa) applicant and member of the Jamaica Fire Brigade faced internal disciplinary sanction or dismissal after the brigade's acting commissioner apologised to the embassy on behalf of his department for this applicant's discreditable act of falsifying documents for US training," the cable said.

The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and accessed by The Gleaner, entitled 'Fraud Summary', revealed that in October 2009, the Americans informed their superiors in Washington that the Kingston Embassy had seen a spike in the number of sham visa applications detected after it introduced a new facial recognition (FR) software.

"Post has seen an increase in the number of identity fraud cases caught through facial recognition. Two cases in particular were performers who required a waiver for prior drug activity ... . In both cases, FR (facial recognition) showed that the applicant had been issued a visa under a different identity. Both applicants were subsequently refused," the cable stated.

The sensitive diplomatic note disclosed that 42 per cent of the immigrant visa (IV) cases probed by the FPU during March to August 2009 were fraudulent, while 27 per cent of all NIV cases handled by the unit during that same period turned out to be shifty.

The cable said the FPU received 406 NIV cases and 57 new IV cases, among other applications.

"Of all the visa cases (referred to the FPU), 42 per cent of IV cases confirmed fraud, and 27 per cent of NIV cases were confirmed fraud," the cable added.

Every year, thousands of Jamaicans apply for non-immigrant and immigrant visas at the US Embassy.

Information provided by the Americans in April last year revealed that in 2009, the US Embassy in Kingston received some 110,000 applications for non-immigrant visas, and processed 11,000 applications for immigrant visas.

Successful immigrant visa applicants are given the famous 'green card'.