Embassy stops applications Stabroek News March 22, 2000 The United States Embassy here has stopped accepting applications for non-immigrant visas until further notice, following the arrest of official Thomas Carroll and a Guyanese Halim Khan, who have been charged with conspiracy to sell US visas in Guyana. Carroll was arrested on Friday night at his parent's home in Chicago and Khan at the Miami International Airport earlier the same day as he was preparing to board a flight to Guyana. A statement from the US Embassy in Guyana said that the Consular Section would continue to process immigrant visa cases normally. However, applications for non-immigrant visas would not be accepted with the exception of cases involving serious emergencies. The statement added that President Bharrat Jagdeo had pledged the Government of Guyana's complete cooperation in the continuing investigation. The embassy could not provide any additional comment about the case, since the investigations were ongoing. A release from the US Department of Justice, US Attorney, Northern District of Illinois, said that Carroll had made an initial court appearance on Saturday and was being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Chicago, pending a detention hearing today before US Magistrate, Judge Morton Denlow. Khan also known as 'Noel' and 'Keith', Of Meten-Meer-Zorg, West Coast Demerara, who reportedly owns a restaurant there, was scheduled to make a court appearance on Monday afternoon. Stabroek News understands that one of his relatives has departed Guyana to post bail for him in Miami. According to the Chicago Tribune, over the weekend, investigators armed with search warrants seized ten gold bars valued at about US$300,000 and about US$500,000 in cash from Carroll's safe-deposit box at Cole Taylor Bank in Burbank. On Monday, authorities moved to freeze another US$535,000 in assets held by Carroll or his wife at the same place, as well as in Merrill Lynch, Fidelity Investments and Scotia Bank accounts, the Tribune said. The Tribune quoted US Attorney, Scott Lassar, and special agent in charge of State Department Diplomatic Security Service in Chicago, Kevin Flanagan, as saying that it was not known how many visas Carroll allegedly sold, what types of people were willing to pay a bribe to obtain a visa or if any of them remained illegally in the US. Flanagan was reported as saying that the State Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service were trying to track down those still in the US on the fraudulent visas. Law enforcement affidavits attached to the complaints said authorities began investigating the selling of visas in Guyana by Carroll in June 1999. According to the affidavits, the investigations began after confidential sources told investigators that they had been solicited by intermediaries for the purchase of US visas. Khan, it was alleged, was a broker whom Carroll used as an intermediary between himself and the purchasers of US visas. From March 1998 to March 1999, Carroll's duties included those of vice-consul and chief of the Non-Immigrant Visa Section of the US Embassy. In this capacity he had sole responsibility for reviewing and adjudicating applications for US visas by Guyanese and other foreign nationals. In March last year, Carroll was routinely transferred within the embassy and became economic/commercial officer in which capacity he no longer adjudicated visa applications. Around February, this year, Carroll allegedly solicited another employee at the embassy, who is cooperating in the investigation, to approve US visas of designated individuals in exchange for money. According to the release, the two officials were engaged in numerous conversations, many of which were secretly recorded in Guyana and elsewhere, concerning the illegal sale of US visas. Carroll allegedly told the cooperating witness (CW) that he would pay for approving visas and that when he (Carroll) left Guyana, as he was anticipating, he would introduce the CW to another individual to act as the CW's local contact in Guyana for the sale of visas. The press statement said that between February 25 and 28, 2000, Carroll paid the CW approximately US$40,000 for approving visas. Carroll also allegedly offered to pay the CW US$4,000 for each future visa if the CW granted visas to applicants identified by Carroll. The CW subsequently left Guyana for Miami where he and Carroll arranged to meet to discuss the sale of US visas. Khan and Carroll arrived in Miami on March 16 and met the CW at the airport to arrange for the continuation of the visa-selling scheme by the CW in Guyana. The statement said that at that meeting Khan and Carroll asked the CW to approve approximately 250 visas in exchange for a US$1 million. A proposal was reportedly made to have the CW return with Khan to Guyana on March 18. After the meeting, Khan remained in Miami while Carroll and his wife travelled to Chicago on home leave. The affidavits detailed telephone conversations on March 17, between Carroll and Khan after he had arrived in Palos Hills, where his parents live and between Khan and the CW. The CW told Khan that he was not going to return to Guyana the next day as planned. Carroll, the statement said, subsequently spoke with the CW by phone and told him that Khan had been impressed with him and disappointed that they were not returning together the next day. As a result, according to their discussion, the number of visas that could be sold would be fewer than the 250 that they had discussed. According to the statement, the affidavits also detailed statements made by Carroll during the course of the investigation in which he allegedly discussed methods of concealing money removed from Guyana; the high volume of the fraudulent visas he had issued without being detected, in part because he had refused visas to other applicants; and his possession of more than US$1 million during his residence in Guyana. The complaints also allege that Carroll who earned less than $50,000 a year in salary made deposits totalling more than US$100,000 in 1999 alone into accounts controlled either by himself, his wife or jointly. Investigators traced the source of some of these deposits to negotiable instruments purchased in amounts less than US$3,000 to avoid triggering record-keeping requirements. Some of the accounts seized or restrained were opened via the internet and none of them were used for Carroll's salary deposits. The maximum penalty for conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official and to commit visa fraud is five years in prison and a fine of US$250,000. Visa fraud in this instance, the statement said, carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a fine of up to three times the amount of the bribes and disqualification from holding federal office. The court, however, would determine upon conviction the appropriate sentence to impose under the US sentencing guidelines. The statement gave the reminder that a complaint contains only charges and was not evidence of guilt.