Carroll refused bail, Khan for court Friday
United States embassy official, Thomas Carroll, was ordered held without bond when he appeared in a Chicago court yesterday, charged with offences relating to visa fraud committed in Guyana. The United States Government returned an indictment against him on three counts of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, producing false visas and bribery. He pleaded not guilty to all three charges, and was ordered held without bond. According to Public Information Officer of the Assistant United States Attorney's Office (ADA), Northern District of Illinois, Randall Samborn, US authorities have revised upward the value in assets seized or frozen in the case. These are now estimated at US$1.8 million. Samborn told Stabroek News that the ADA had provided additional details relating to the case, namely, that a passport issued in the Irish Republic bearing Carroll's name had been found, and that he had personally threatened possible witnesses in Guyana. Carroll's next court appearance, Samborn said, would be on April 11, however, a judge would consider a bond if Carroll's attorney were to make a more specific bond proposal. He is currently imprisoned in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, a federal facility. Carroll, 32, of Chicago and Guyanese Halim Khan, 36, of West Coast Demerara, were arrested on Friday on charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and visa fraud. Carroll, a State Department Foreign Service officer, was picked up at the home of his parents in the Chicago suburb of Palos Hills, while Khan was arrested in Miami as he tried to board a plane for Guyana. Khan, also known as 'Noel' and 'Keith', of Meten-Meer-Zorg, West Coast Demerara, where he reportedly owns a restaurant, has not been extradited to Chicago and is to appear in a Miami court tomorrow. Authorities said that the investigation began in June 1999 when they were tipped by confidential sources that someone had offered to sell visas out of the US Embassy in Georgetown to enter this country. For 12 months starting in March 1998, Carroll was the officer in the embassy in charge of issuing visas to Guyanese and other foreign nationals. In March 1999, he became economic and commercial officer at the embassy and, as such, was no longer in charge of visas. Federal officials said that in February, Carroll asked another embassy employee, now a cooperating witness (CW) to approve visas in exchange for money. Criminal complaints filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago alleged that Carroll at one point offered to pay the embassy employee $4,000 for every future visa he approved. The two engaged in a number of conversations, many of which were recorded, authorities said. Affidavits attached to the complaints alleged that Khan was a broker whom Carroll used as an intermediary between himself and the purchasers of US visas. Carroll had allegedly told the 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. Khan, Carroll and the CW met in Miami, where they discussed the visa selling scheme and Khan and Carroll allegedly asked the CW to approve approximately 250 visas in exchange for US$1 million. 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 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 alleged 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 was 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.
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