The police in Lagos State have arrested a 38-year-old arrowhead of a visa racketeering gang, Abioye Abolaji, with several forged documents belonging to both the state and federal government agencies, as well as those of the United Nations (UN).
Abolaji, who was taken into custody last week, was arrested by officers attached to the Diplomatic Section of the Special Fraud Unit.
His arrest followed a petition from the Diplomatic Security Services (DSS) Regional Security Office at the United States Consulate General (USCG), Lagos, which requested discrete investigation into forged documents submitted by certain C-2 Visa applicants to the Non-Immigrant Visa (NIV) Unit of USCG.
C-2 Visa is a NIV category reserved for participants at UN conferences and events.
Upon receipt of the petition, the Commissioner of Police, Special Fraud Unit, Adepoju Ilori, detailed a team of detectives to investigate.
During the course of investigation into 77 C-2 applications from 24 organisations in Nigeria requesting to attend two separate conferences: 67th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and UN 2023 Water Conference, scheduled to take place in New York from March 22 and 24, 2023.
The investigation revealed that most of the applicants were not qualified for the visa classification they applied for because they provided forged UN Invitation Letters.
SFU’s spokesman, SP Eyitayo Johnson, who confirmed the arrests, said all the applicants, who claimed to be employees of Osun & Sons Agricultural Venture, Ray D. Exclusive Electrical Contractor, or ACE Technoresources Integrated Services; planned to attend the UN Water Conference as representatives or nominees.
Johnson said the investigation also revealed that none of the organisations was in consultative status with the UN and that the employment of most of the applicants had no bearing to either of the referenced UN conferences.
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