Embassy Cartel: Corrupt Officials Defrauding Passport-Seeking Nigerians Abroad in Global Syndicate
Dr. Perry Brimah
The reports keep coming in from Nigerian embassies across the world. In what appears to be a consorted syndicate, Nigerian embassy officials are scamming passport renewal seeking Nigerians abroad at virtually all embassies.
The scam is pretty straightforward and operates in some of the following ways: the embassies either give renewal dates too distant in the future, several months away or intentionally make mistakes in the applicants’ passports. At times the officials claim the candidate already applied for a passport in Nigeria and that the person’s name would have a double entry.
See video of recent victim in Germany vent her frustrations: https://youtu.be/XPdwXai1g-o
Frustrated Nigerians unable to even get any phone customer service from the embassies become desperate to overcome the seemingly impossible obstruction. At this point embassy officials and their conspirators offer “fixing” the problem for a fee. The fees are in the hundreds of dollars or euros.
With no apparent option, Nigerians abroad who happen to be the highest contributors to Nigeria’s economy, remitting home as much as $35 billion dollars a year but who are not even allowed to exercise their voting right, are left no alternative but to cough out the bribe for the embassy scamming officials.
Hundreds of Millions of dollars are estimated to have been skimmed out off the pockets of unwilling Nigerians in the diaspora in this elaborate scam in recent years.
Embassy officials swallowing these stupendous criminal emoluments have become quite aggressive and arrogant in their conduct, insulting and sometimes going as far as physically assaulting and molesting distressed Nigerian and foreign passport and visa seekers at the embassies and high commissions as captured in this recording at the New York High commission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yjv8FZoXUc
Despite series of complaints, the Nigerian government has shown no sign of reigning-in on its corrupt officials and apprehending and incarcerating those involved in the open and recurrent scandal.
#StopEmbassyScam
