FREETOWN - Corrupt Sierra Leonean
officials have been selling fraudulent service and diplomatic
passports for thousands of dollars to individuals hoping to use
them to enter the United States, the country's anti-corruption
commissioner told Reuters.
Africa has a thriving black market for illegal passports,
prompting the United States, Britain and others to tighten visa
regulations for countries where the issue is most acute.
In Sierra Leone, a recent investigation uncovered a large
network of bureaucrats selling passports for up to $7 000 and
assisting buyers to apply for US visas with them, said
Commissioner Francis Ben Kaifala, who was appointed last June.
"We have evidence of high-ups at the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and the Immigration Department participating, and
neither agency has much, if any, control over it," he said in an
interview on Thursday.
"There have been many, many people to gain access to the US
this way, with passports that were not proper. It's systemic."
Representatives of the foreign ministry and the immigration
office declined to comment.
The investigation follows a request from the U.S. government
in 2017 for the West African country to tighten its
passport-issuing procedure after a higher-than-average number of
Sierra Leoneans visiting the United States were found to be
overstaying their visas.
On Monday, nine people were arrested by Anti-Corruption
Commission (ACC) officers assisted by US Embassy security and
consular personnel for attempting to apply for visas with
fraudulent service passports, which are meant to be used only by
government employees for work-related travel.
Among those detained was Alieu Kanu, Sierra Leone's former
ambassador to the United Nations, who the ACC alleges organised
the sale of the passports and accompanied the buyers to add
credence to their applications.
Kanu's lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.
According to the anti-corruption commissioner, several
unnamed foreign ministry and immigration department officials
were arrested on charges relating to the investigation two weeks
ago, while the former minister of immigration is currently on
the run after a warrant was issued for his arrest last week.
In September 2017, the US suspended the issuance of
short-term visas for foreign ministry and immigration officials
who had applied in Freetown. It said the restriction could be
extended to other citizens if Sierra Leone did not takes steps
to establish reliable processes for issuing travel documents to
and from the United States.
The average overstay rate of foreigners entering the United
States on non-immigrant visas is 1.9%, but the average
overstay rate for Sierra Leoneans is 12.6%, according to
the Department of Homeland Security.
"This passport cartel is a major reason for (Sierra Leone's
high overstay rate)," Kaifala said. "People who obtain these
illicit passports are not travelling with the intent of coming
back. They say they're going for a conference or visiting family
and just stay."
Fake passports are a problem across the continent. In 2017,
the UK and New Zealand ended visa-free travel programmes for
South Africa due to high levels of counterfeit and fraudulently
obtained document use.
In 2015, Guinea-Bissau announced that more than 1,600 people
had been found to be using service and diplomatic passports
acquired through illicit means.