
Regional Security Office Ghana Shuts Down Fake US Embassy - prostoalex
http://www.state.gov/m/ds/rls/263916.htm
======
fuzzfactor
This just in from the the State Department, Washington, DC.

"Successful interagency operations like this are an essential part of
investigating and stopping the well-connected criminal networks perpetrating
passport and visa fraud."

Nice to find out about such highly successful anti-corruption efforts where it
only took 10 years to disable a vast conspiracy of "several suspects" who were
arrested after nefariously deploying a massive network of high-tech equipment
"that included a laptop computer; cell smart phones; 150 passports from 10
countries" and more, plus "an industrial sewing machine".

Very few law-enforcement agencies ever manage to apprehend any sewing machines
at all.

Overcoming such a huge criminal enterprise certainly would not have been
possible without every one of these powerful international investigative
agencies on-the-job around-the-clock.

Fortunately only "Several suspects remain at large" and "this is only the
beginning."

Excellent, in about 10 more years we should expect another criminal's laptop
to be brought down.

~~~
brohoolio
I don't know what you expect. That the U.S. is going to police every nook and
cranny of every country when there is rampant local corruption.

------
donretag
When I was traveling across Africa, I was told that thieves love the steal
passports from US and UK Citizens since it was possible to be black and a
citizen of those countries once the passport is doctored with a new photo.
Much harder to pull off a photo of a black person with a German passport and
German name. These passports were sold via operations like the one mentioned
in the article.

The saddest part of the article is the local officials were bribed for a
decade. Ten years.

~~~
cdubzzz
I handed my wallet and (U.S.) passport to a guy in Ghana with an automatic
rifle jammed in my neck. He took the cash and threw the passport on the
ground, hah.

~~~
Archio
If you don't mind me asking, where in Ghana were you?

~~~
cdubzzz
Somewhere maybe 40km south of Tamale towards Kintampo. We were on a bus headed
south on the main road (Google Maps calls it N10).

~~~
mcfrankline
I'm sure this information is quite verifiable on google and all..(just google
from Tamale to Kintampo and bingo!!) but you're saying that an armed robber in
Ghana points a gun at you, takes your cash and leaves your visa on the floor.
Walks away.

~~~
cdubzzz
Yep! Here is a slightly edited account of my memory of what happened (this was
written a few weeks later):

\---

I’m recreating this trip from an unimpressive map of Ghana and with little
knowledge of the exact route we took, but I believe we were about 40km out of
Tamale, near the small village of Kusawgu, when two men dressed in jungle
fatigues appeared from the bush on the right side of the road and fired a few
rounds from automatic weapons. I can’t recall where exactly they were aiming
but I do feel like the guns were pointed pretty directly at the front of the
bus. The driver yelled “Oh shit!” or something similar in French as he sank
back into his seat and pulled the bus out of gear. From somewhere behind me I
heard a woman yell “Il faut continuer!” (“Keep going!”) as the driver slowed
and turned the bus to the shoulder of the road. As we slowed down a small tro-
tro (taxi van) sped up quickly and managed to use our bus as sort of a shield
to get by the gunmen (who did take a few shots in vain at the little bugger).

There were a few more shots and a loud noise outside the bus as one of the
gunmen shot out the front right tire. He then came on the bus and tossed the
bus worker who was sitting in front of the door out of the bus. The driver was
yelling at us to get off and apparently this made the gunmen a little angry so
he smacked him over the head a few times (nothing serious). For my part, I put
my head down and had no intention of moving until someone with a gun told me
too. Next, the gunmen who got on the bus turned to face the passengers, said
something incomprehensible and fired a round inside the bus. The gunmen was
standing right next to me so the shot gave my left ear quite a ringing and we
later saw where the bullet landed, just over the seats where two people from
our group were sitting. He then grabbed my shoulder and heaved me a little
towards the door, which I took to mean that he wanted me to get off the bus.

When I got outside I saw the bus worker lying face down on the ground with his
arms and legs spread. I felt this position looked a little awkward so for a
moment I just kind of stood there. Then another volunteer from our group came
out and got down on his knees and covered his head next to me so I followed
his cue. A small aside here, as part of our safety and security training with
Peace Corps we have been well informed of the general anatomy of a situation
like this and something similar did in fact happen to a volunteer in Burkina a
few months ago. Basically these men are highway robbers looking for money,
they are not out to hurt anyone and the general rules for the persons being
robbed are to do as they say and do not look them in the face.

Anyway, not long after I got off the bus I felt hands reach in to my back
pockets to search for money (none was there). From here on out I can only
really guess at what was happening because all I could see was the ground
under me and a few people nearby. After a few minutes some more hands made
their way in to my back pockets and once again came away empty. Finally,
someone came around in front of me and lifted me up a little while something
else poked me in the back of the neck (I assume a gun); I kept my eyes on the
ground, took my wallet and passport from the front pocket of my shirt, handed
it to him and went back into my covered position. He immediately threw the
passport back down on the ground, took a few seconds to pull the cash out of
my wallet (150,000cfa, about US$350) and then tossed the wallet with all its
contents back at my hands. I was immediately rather relieved that he did not
take my ID or passport as it saved me the trouble of replacing them.

Throughout this process there was some celebratory hooting and hollering
(understandably, dudes were making bank with all of us nassara (foreigners))
and a few random gun shots here and there. At some point there were maybe 15
or 30 seconds of frenzied gun fire that were followed by single shots at
close, seemingly equal intervals. I became a little worried thinking that
maybe they were executing people, but I took the lack of any sort of other
noise (screaming, body thud, etc) to indicate that this was not the case. I
noticed the bus worker beside me start to sit up and look around a little and
eventually turn on his back and sit down. I took this to mean the coast was
clear so I slowly came up to look around and saw a Ghanaian police officer
firing rounds in to the bush. I was quite relieved (and surprised) to see him
there, I don’t think the whole ordeal lasted more than 10 minutes and that
strikes me as a pretty good response time for the police. Taking the example
of the volunteer that this happened to in Burkina, I believe he was held up
for over half an hour (or more) and I don’t think the police came at all. [HN
edit - I later spoke with this volunteer about his experience, he was in fact
held up for a couple of hours and police never did come. In his case they took
pretty much everything he had (he didn't have his passport at the time).]

Once everyone realized that the immediate danger was over people began looking
around for their belongings while the police tried to get an idea of what
happened and what was taken. At one point in this process an officer asked me
how much was taken from me; after I told him, he added it to his list and
remarked, and I quote, “Wow, they had a field day.” I found this pretty damn
amusing. Anyway the first thing I found was my favorite dress shirt on the
ground just outside the bus. I collected that and got back on the bus to look
for my bag but found nothing near my seat. I then went back outside and found
another small item of clothing (I think shorts) before I noticed my bag (the
thermal bag that I love so dearly) crushed up against the windshield and
empty. I was happy to find my bag but pretty bummed to think that everything
inside had been taken (clothes, camera, ipod). To my surprise, however, I
eventually found pretty much everything strewn about randomly in the first few
rows of seats. Apparently the robbers were either completely uninterested in
anything other than cash or simply didn’t have the time to get everything they
wanted. Some other peoples’ bags remained untouched and for the most part
everyone in our group still had some money (I was the only idiot who didn’t
separate my money out in different places).

Within (impressively) five or 10 minutes there was an empty bus ready to take
us all to the next large city on our trip south, Kintampo, while the driver
and worker changed the shot-out tire on our bus. We got in to Kintampo pretty
late in the evening so Peace Corps asked that we get a hotel there before
continuing to the much larger city Kumasi (which has a Peace Corps “sub
office”). We got rooms in a nice little hotel overlooking the bus station and
this was where we got our first taste of the delicious “fried rice” dish that
is a staple in Ghana. The dish includes, obviously, fried rice plus a little
salad, a piece of fried chicken, some baked beans (!!) and occasionally a hard
boiled egg. Needless to say we were all relieved to relax and have some good
food after such a long day.

\---

~~~
BoorishBears
As a Ghanaian, this is a pretty odd story for multiple reasons.

~~~
cdubzzz
I don't find that surprising by any means. It's out of context and a near
stream of consciousness memory rant of the only time in my life anyone has
ever pointed a gun at me (:

------
andmarios
Startup trying to disrupt protected market; gets hit hard by authorities.

~~~
angry_octet
Like uber, they we're able to use a legal shell game to dance around the DS
and Ghanaian plods. Their operations continue elsewhere.

~~~
novaleaf
> bought enough time for corrupt officials to arrange for bail for members

Sounds like an employer that looks after it's employees!

------
ttn
As a Turk I always knew that our criminals were good at creating fake stuff.
But faking an EMBASSY for TEN YEARS? This is something beyond being good at
something.

~~~
dep_b
I find this article really discriminating towards Dutch people. Only people
born in Holland can speak perfect English and Dutch so this was definitely a
Dutch guy, maybe with Turkish passport because you cannot escape the Turkish
government even after generations of living in another country when their
grandfathers came to work in a factory, but nonetheless as Dutch as apple pie
_.

I have no idea why you Turks need to claim the fame while these guys clearly
learned all the tricks from us. It's time you start respecting us.

_ you should try ours. It's better than yours.

~~~
dep_b
My god. It's a joke. Relax.

------
winteriscoming
When I saw that pic of that fake embassy I wondered how could a embassy look
that shoddy. Then I thought maybe not all countries have posh and clean
looking embassies. Then I see the pic of the real embassy on that page and it
looks similar to what I have seen of most embassies - clean and elegant looks.

To be able to run this fake embassy in that shoddy building for a decade does
take real something.

~~~
zhte415
UK has outsourced all visa application and interview work to a company named
FRS, whose offices, offices for visa and application, representing the
country, can be described no more than shoddy and downright a disgrace for the
UK.

*Context: Was in one of their offices 2 weeks ago and embarrassed this was how my country was representing itself.

~~~
geocar
Indeed. This[1] is where I had to go for part of the UK immigration process.
If I hadn't linked there from a gov.uk website I wouldn't have believed I was
at the right place.

[1]: [http://i.imgur.com/ns3560x.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/ns3560x.jpg)

~~~
zhte415
Thanks. Wow. That's really bad.

------
mcfrankline
Flag and all, i wouldn't call it a "Fake US Embassy". With the high rate of
Visa denials in countries like Nigeria,(and some other francophone West
African countries) Ghana is a go to haven for all your visa issues. I'm quite
sure most of these "victims" knew the kind of documentation they were going to
get, just as long as it gets you through immigration. Scam might not be the
word here, more like illegal travel facilitation.

------
Spooky23
Ballsy.

I can't help but have some level of grudging admiration for scammers so
brazen.

~~~
Mtinie
A decade of operation...that takes dedication.

~~~
valgaze
Don't get too impressed with scammers, they evidently maintained pretty chill
hours:

"Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, 7:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m"

~~~
nl
Roughly comparable to a real US Embassy:

American Citizen Services, Telephone: (03) 9526-5900 Monday to Thursday only
9:00am – 12:00noon

[https://au.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/melbourne/u-s-
ci...](https://au.usembassy.gov/embassy-consulates/melbourne/u-s-citizenship-
services/)

------
lonelyw0lf
Next they will doctor a fake "US Country" and then they will issue visas for
it :) the poor souls who have never seen the US will feel they have come to
the US :) Level 2 :)

~~~
13of40
It's kind of interesting that in order to issue recognized passports you need
to have military control over some land somewhere. Why isn't it possible to
vet people as citizens without that?

~~~
morgante
Several international organizations (the EU, UN, and Interpol) issue travel
documents which can be recognized like passports even though they don't have
military control over any territory.

~~~
nl
People from American Samoa are US nationals but not US Citizens, and get a
different US Passport[1]. Apparently the ILO issues travel documents, too
although it is unclear how widely they are recognized[2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_document#American_Samoa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_document#American_Samoa)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_document#UN_travel_docu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_document#UN_travel_documents),
[http://www.icao.int/Meetings/TAG-MRTD/Documents/Tag-
Mrtd-20/...](http://www.icao.int/Meetings/TAG-MRTD/Documents/Tag-
Mrtd-20/TagMrtd-20_WP015_en.pdf)

------
smkellat
Scammers acting as if they were the IRS, scammers acting if they were the US
Foreign Service...as much as people don't like the slogan of "Buy American" we
surely have a world of scammers who think that is worth something.

------
jiqiren
The blockbuster hollywood movie watching kid and sad drone stat reading adult
in me is wondering why all these people were not just killed years ago. Seems
pretty serious to just be able to produce visas and fake/doctored passports.

~~~
superuser2
I'd imagine the documents aren't worth anything since they don't correspond to
any database entry. Just a way to scam people for fees.

~~~
culturestate
It's not as though every border crossing in every country has instantaneous
access to international passport registries. There are many, many places in
the world where your docs only need to _seem_ authentic to be useful.

~~~
regularfry
They could also be useful as a privilege escalation on-ramp. Get these fakes,
use them to gain genuinely issued, but lower status credentials (Bank account?
SSN maybe?), then use that as leverage to go further up the chain.

------
rtpg
I wonder how far you can go with these fake documents. I imagine the internet
makes it a bit harder

~~~
gumby
They might not get you into the US but they might be adequate to get you into
a third country or be useful to validate a legal contract or something like
that.

