![Latest News - News Stories Latest News - News Stories](_images/headers/latestnews.newsstories.gif)
UN translator admits to visa fraud scam
By Harvey Morris
Financial Times
March 11, 2008
A translator at the United Nations’ New York headquarters has admitted his part in a money-making fraud scheme to obtain US visas for foreign nationals by making false applications on official UN stationery.
The case was the latest of a number of UN-linked scandals that have ended up in the US courts.
The Manhattan federal court said Vyacheslav Manokhin, a Russian, had pleaded guilty to the fraud in which he used his position at the UN to make it appear the applications were genuine. Vladimir Derevianko, his co-defendant and fellow Russian, also entered a guilty plea.
The fake letters requested visas on behalf of foreigners said to be planning to attend UN conferences in the US. The applicants, who paid thousands of dollars to obtain the visas, neither attended the conferences nor intended to do so, the court said.
Mr Manokhin signed the applications in the name of Leonardo Brackett, a non-existent official at the UN Development Programme, and told callers who rang to check the requests that he was Brackett’s assistant.
Kamiljan Tursunov, who admitted in January to obtaining a visa through Mr Manokhin, said he paid $15,000 to a person in Uzbekistan for the service.
After he entered the US, ostensibly to attend a conference, he moved to Florida where he lived for more than two years.
Mr Derevianko, who fled Ukraine in 1997, was granted asylum in the US in 2004. He successfully argued that criminal charges he faced in Ukraine were fabricated by corrupt government officials in retaliation for the past information he provided in government investigations of official corruption.
Click here for the full story.
Senator Tom Coburn
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-2254 Fax: 202-228-3796
|
![Oversight Action - Learn more Oversight Action button](_images/template/btn_oversightaction.gif)
![Investigative Reports - Learn more Investigative Reports button](_images/template/btn_investigativereports.gif)
![Your Tax Dollars at Work - Learn more Your Tax Dollars at Work button](_images/template/btn_yourtaxdollarsatwork.gif)
![Submit a tip about government waste - Learn more Submit a tip button](_images/template/btn_submitatip.gif)
![Legislative and Floor Action - Learn more Legislative and Floor Action button](_images/template/btn_legislativeflooraction.gif)
|