An organised gang in Ghana ran a fake embassy selling real US visas for $6,000 for “about a decade” and no-one came to know about it.
The US State Department says Ghanaian and Turkish-organised crime rings were running the fake embassy complete with a US flag and a portrait of President Barack Obama “unhindered... for about a decade”.
“The fake embassy did not accept walk-in visa appointments; instead, they drove to the most remote parts of West Africa to find customers. They would shuttle the customers to Accra, and rent them a room at a hotel nearby. The Ghanaian-organised crime ring would shuttle the victims to and from the fake embassies.”
The State Department also said the criminals running the operation were able to grease corrupt officials’ palms “to look the other way”.
The BBC’s Sammy Darko says the criminals involved targeted poorer and less educated people whom they thought would be less likely to see through the deception.
Eventually when police raided the fake embassy, they found 150 passports from 10 countries.
Some arrests have been made, while some alleged members of the gang are on the run.
However, questions remain how the scam remained undetected for so long.
For the last 10 years, Ghana had two US embassies – the original one and the fake one.
While both of them issued documents allowing permission to travel to the US, only the original one was legal. The other ‘embassy’ was a big scam, run to exploit people.
The false embassy made every effort to convince travellers that it was a genuine US government building. The office was staffed with white people as well as black Ghanaians. A portrait of US President Barack Obama was hung on one of the walls, and visitors were seen by appointment only.
According to the US State Department, its services were publicly advertised in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo.
