http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/u-s-embassy-worker-yemen-issued-fake-visas-court-papers-article-1.2021032Employee at U.S. Embassy in Yemen may have issued fake visas for people to enter the states: court documents
EXCLUSIVE: An employee at the embassy may have given out more than 50 sham visas to people who falsely claimed they needed to enter the U.S. to attend an oil industry conference in Texas, according to unsealed papers in Brooklyn Federal Court. The feds learned the Yemeni citizens never went to the conference. It was not clear if the fraudulent visas were connected to terrorism.
BY John Marzulli
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, November 24, 2014, 2:30 AM
The feds have uncovered a breach of security inside the U.S. Embassy in Yemen that led to bogus visas being issued, the Daily News has learned.
A corrupt Yemeni national working in the embassy may have provided more than 50 sham visas to persons who falsely claimed they needed to travel to the U.S. to attend an oil industry conference in Texas, papers unsealed in Brooklyn Federal Court state.
Yemen is a hotbed of Islamic extremism. Department of Homeland Security officials got a tip in August and zeroed in on an employee who submitted paperwork for Yemeni citizens who purported to work for Yemeni oil companies.
The State Department’s diplomatic security service determined that the oil companies named as their employers were fictitious, and that none of the applicants went to the conference.
One applicant, Abdulmalek Musleh Alzobaidi, flew into Kennedy Airport on April 24. He presented a nonimmigrant visa, issued by the embassy, in which he claimed he worked for the Jaber Oil Co., a fake entity, and would be attending the conference for 15 days, the papers state.
The State Department “received information from the Yemeni Ministry of Commerce and Information confirming that the Jaber Oil Company is not a registered or legitimate company in Yemen,” Special Agent Bert Seay stated in a criminal complaint lodged against Alzobaidi, who is now in custody.
He never went to Houston, but, rather, was working in a grocery store on Tremont Ave. in the Bronx and living nearby. Alzobaidi was arrested last week for visa fraud and ordered held without bail.
A State Department spokesman did not respond to questions about how many other fraudsters have been tracked down and whether any of them are suspected of having ties to terrorism. It was not clear if the fraudulent visas were in any way connected to terrorism.
Alzobaidi’s lawyer, Patrick Brackley, told The News that his client is a “working guy” who was merely pursuing the American Dream.
“Obviously there is a fear that some heavy people got into the country,” Brackley said, referring to possible terrorists. “There are no other issues related to this fellow.”
The terror group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula operates in Yemen and has been responsible for a host of attacks. AQAP was behind the attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight bound for the U.S. in December 2009, and a plot to send packages containing explosives to the U.S. in October 2010, according to the U.S. Counterterrorism Center.
The U.S. Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, was itself the target of a bombing in 2008. Thirteen persons and six terrorists were killed by car bombs detonated outside the complex.
