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Kenya, US bust visa fraud ring
Published: Saturday, 3 June, 2006, 09:41 AM Doha Time

NAIROBI: Kenyan police broke up a visa fraud ring yesterday, arresting 77 people outside the US embassy here in a massive sting operation co-ordinated with US authorities, officials said.

Officers from Kenya’s elite Criminal Investigations Division (CID) converged on Washington’s embassy in Nairobi to arrest suspects who had been invited there by US diplomats to pick up fraudulently obtained visas, they said.

Dozens of heavily-armed CID men backed by plain-clothes officers swooped down on the compound in Nairobi’s upscale Gigiri neighbourhood shortly after the embassy consular office opened for business, police and witnesses said.

“We arrested 77 people in this special sting operation,” a senior CID official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Patrick Lumumba, commander of the Gigiri Police Division confirmed the arrests in what he called “a very sensitive and well-organised operation” but declined to discuss details.

A US embassy official praised the work of the Kenyan police.

“We greatly appreciate the work of the Kenyan police in making these arrests,” an embassy official said.

“These individuals have been engaged in fraud against the Kenyan people that has resulted in financial hardship for many Kenyan citizens,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Officials familiar with the operation said 84 people had been targeted in the sting, which was devised by Kenyan police and agents from the US State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.

The 84 are suspected of organising and participating in the ring that paired would-be illegal US immigrants with legitimate Kenyan winners of the State Department’s annual diversity visa lottery, they said.

Under the scam, the winners were paid to claim false spouses and children who would then be eligible to enter the US as their dependants, the officials said. – AFP