UPDATE: Russian Translator at United Nations - Visa Fraud

Go read the original post (here) if you are not familiar with this story.

Thanks to UN blog reporter Inner City Press, we now have more details concerning this case:

...This last might imply that the U.S. State Department should have recognized the unauthorized and fraudulent status of the letters stating that the visa-applicants would attend UNDP conferences, including one on legal reform and rehabilitation that is strikingly similar to conferences that UNDP does, in fact, hold.

But as the criminal complaint makes clear, Manokhin's fake letters on UNDP letterhead, signed as "Leonardo Brackett," did not to the U.S. State Department, but rather to UNDP's Office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. - Inner City Press

It was then the UNDP office in Uzbekistan that assisted in obtaining the US Visas. In effect the US was being acted by the UNDP directly and did not see the faked letters. Pretty sneaky I must say. It is amazing that the US managed to discover the fraud, since what they received would have been authentication by the UN office that the person was traveling on official business. Maybe the US noticed that these guys never left the US or that they did not work for the organizations they claimed to as noted on their applications.

At any rate, it is a good thing that this was discovered. The question is, how many other people are getting visas fraudulently through the UN?

Russian Translator at United Nations - Visa Fraud - 6 August 2007