Haiti shuts down visa-selling websites posing as U.S.embassy website

Haiti's National Police, in conjunction with Facebook and the U.S. embassy in Port-au Prince, shut down three websites selling fake visas to U.S.-bound Haitians, local media reported on Friday.

"The fraudulent profiles ... advertised fake visa programs," and directed applicants to "non-embassy telephone numbers to reach people who pretended to be embassy employees," news website Haiti Libre said.

While the U.S. embassy in Haiti does maintain a Facebook page, it does not conduct interviews over the phone or guarantee visas will be issued to applicants once they have paid the fee, as the scam operators promised, the embassy said.

"Several dozen Haitian citizens lost hundreds of dollars each by transferring money to bank accounts in the scam, lured by the promise that their visas would be automatically approved," the agency said.

The problem occurs often enough that the embassy maintains an email address (papfraud@state.gov) exclusively for victims to report such operations. Enditem