Windhoek – The U.S. Embassy Regional Security Office facilitated a Fraudulent Document Training course presented by Diplomatic Security investigators and experts from the U.S. Consulate in Cape Town, South Africa to Namibian Police officers, Namibian Customs officers, Namibian Immigration officers, Bank of Namibia officials, and members of the private sector. The training course focused on detecting impostors, regional travel document fraud trends, and security features of U.S. travel documents.
U.S. Assistant Regional Security Officer for Investigations, Cassius Gray, who facilitate the training, said these training’s are important as they help increase awareness of fraud within the organization.
Participants learned techniques and received inspection equipment that will enable them to quickly identify impostors and fraudulent documents. Officers and officials that participated in the course are able to immediately implement this specialized training in their daily duties in border security, law enforcement, immigration, as well as the private financial sector.
Protecting the integrity of government identity documents and identifying impostors decreases opportunities for identity theft, financial crimes, and assists border officials in securing Namibia’s borders and ports of entry.
International criminals do not respect international borders and law and continue to look for opportunities to exploit. This is why it is critical that nations work together to eliminate international criminal freedom of movement and fraudulent activities.
Namibia Senior Immigration Officer Philemon Shikale said fraud cases in the country have increased in the past two years. He said impostor are now producing fake visa documents and removing authentic pictures from identity documents and replacing them with impostors.
“Namibia has strict immigration laws and this is forcing many travelers to forge their documents. I therefore, think refresher training courses like these should take place three times each year,” says Shikale, who works at a border control site in the capital.
The U.S. Embassy is dedicated to continued support of the Government of Namibia with additional training opportunities for public and private sector partners.
