Category Archives: UN United Nations Fraud Corruption

Russia Using Battlefield Electronic Warfare and Hacking

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Iran and Turkey met in Moscow directly after the operations began to finish off the hostilities in Aleppo. The United States, meaning John Kerry was not invited. A new global leadership arrangement is underway and the United States has lost her ranking. Even after the murder of the Russian ambassador by a Turkish police officer, the relationship appears to be getting more cozy. This may be a good place to remember the fact that Turkey is a NATO country and the United States still has an aging nuclear weapons inventory at Incirlik in Turkey.

So what is the ultimate objective? Hard to describe but the Kremlin is the grand marshal of building pattern for the future. Russia, previously the Soviet Union is a country built on a militarist model and not a peacetime model, always has been.

Russia’s military is now stronger that any possible foe, President Vladimir Putin told an annual end-of-year meeting with the defense ministry on Thursday.

“We can say with certainty: we are stronger now than any potential aggressor,” he told the meeting. “Anyone!”

Putin made the comments after Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu presented his annual report, lauding Russia’s military achievements in Syria as well as successful efforts to modernize the Russian army.

Among other things, Shoygu said Russia “for the first time in its history” has fully covered the Russian border with early warning anti-missile systems. Shoygu also announced plans to send more troops to Russia’s west, south-west and the Arctic region. More from FNC.

Iran is geared the same and expanding its offensive military systems including global militias and missile systems. Russia is testing an anti-satellite weapons system. Iran is expanding the weapons arsenal using much of the money we paid to them in ransom.

The nearly $2 billion, which was delivered to Iran in cash, is a substantial cash infusion to the country’s coffers and was viewed by lawmakers as a primary means for Iran to invest in advanced military technology.
Since the payment was made, Iran has pursued multiple arms deals with Russia and sought to purchase a slew of new commercial jetliners, which the country has historically integrated into its air force.
Dunford admitted in his correspondence to Congress that Iran’s actions—including the buildup of ballistic missiles and other advanced weaponry—continue to cause worry in the Middle East.
“Regional actors have expressed great concern about Iran’s activities and intent, but I have not received new, specific concerns regarding an increasing belligerence or growing military investment on the part of Iran,” Dunford wrote.

Then there is the Ukraine Baltic region where Russia has applied hacking and electronic warfare against U.S. drone systems and hacking communications. Further, independent white hat software experts are proving Russian electronic hacking in other battlefield systems that include artillery units.

Both Russia and Iran are looking at the long game while the United States changes leadership and diplomacy every 4-8 years. So what is the long game? For Iran and Russia it is the same, military expansion. For Iran, it goes beyond their existing power in Lebanon and building bases in the region which include more of the Middle East with Yemen and to challenge the Gulf States, Bahrain, most especially Saudi Arabia and may involve Armenia. Iran has joint control of Syria and Iraq presently and Rouhani recently visited Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The president is accompanied by a number of his ministers and deputies. Kazakhstan is a former Soviet biological weapons facility of which the United States is paying still to this day to clean up and Baikonur is also the location for the space race and exploration systems.

For Russia it is the Bosporus Strait and the Dardanelles. This could be a power coup on Turkey that Erdogan has not figured out yet or may approve if there is another financial deal in the works.

The Black Sea is the ultimate power target by both nations. The Black Sea gives Russia more region authority over the Baltics and more access to the Mediterranean.

TURKEY BLOCKADING RUSSIA FROM DARDANELLES; BLACK SEA FLEET COMPLETELY CUT OFF

For Russia, the United States is not alone as the UK is also the target.

Vladimir Putin’s defence minister today compared the British army to Nazi Germany as the new Cold War plunged to a fresh low.

Sergei Shoigu claimed British troops on a Salisbury Plain training facility have started to use Russian-made tanks and uniforms of the Russian military to designate the enemy.

And the 61-year-old general, one of Putin’s closest allies and a personal friend, also alleged that NATO has doubled the intensity of military exercises, and dubbed them ‘anti-Russian.’

The man who heads the former Red Army said: ‘The last time this training method was used was by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.’

His comments came during a meeting in the Russian defence ministry of his top brass. More here from DailyMail.

 

 

 

Aleppo: Tell Our Story After we are Gone

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Update as of 2:24 EST, December 13, 2016, a truce and a cease fire announced.

The Syrian government has established control over eastern Aleppo, Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday. More from CNN.

It was October of 2016, that I interviewed Abdulkafi Al-Hamdo that is mentioned weeks later, today, in this article. He told me the same then, don’t cry for us, tell our story. You could hear the reckoning in his voice, his time on earth was short. (Segment 2) Barack Obama and John Kerry own this genocide and hence should be the mantle of their policy legacy.

 

Last Rebels in Aleppo Say Assad Forces Are Burning People Alive

As the Syrian dictator’s coalition captures the last rebel-held neighborhoods, residents are bidding the world farewell and opposition media says mass atrocities have already begun.

DailyBeast: Amid celebratory gunfire and cheers from Assad loyalists, foreign militias under Iranian command and troops loyal to the regime on Monday captured about 90 percent of the opposition-held areas of eastern Aleppo.

The last hope of the besieged rebels, most of whom seem to have withdrawn in the face of certain defeat, had been to receive reinforcements or resupplies from their counterparts in the southern and western suburbs. That option has now been foreclosed upon as these routes are completely interdicted by the regime.

The triumphal takeover of the citadel of the Syrian revolution followed a day of intense bombing of houses and apartment buildings, destroying so many that it was impossible to determine the death toll. The neighborhoods of Bustan al-Qasr, al-Kallasa, al-Farod and al-Salhin in the Old City, as well as Sheikh Saed, in the southern district, are all now under regime control.

The Syrian Civil Defense, or White Helmets, an internationally renowned team of first responders, said more than 90 bodies of people presumed to be still alive are under debris and that its volunteer staff reported they could hear the voices of children trapped in the rubble of their houses.

A member of the group in Aleppo told al-Arabiya TV on Monday night that men, women, and children were huddling and crying in the streets and at the gates of empty buildings in the few neighborhoods that remained in the hands of the opposition. He described the situation as hopeless, because precision munitions and indiscriminate barrel bombs had destroyed the city’s medical facilities, ambulances, and fuel supply.

Unconfirmed reports, circulated by opposition media, suggest that mass atrocities have already begun, such as the summary executions of 17 in al-Kalaseh neighborhood, 22 in Bostan al-Kasrand, and the immolation of four women and nine children on al-Firdous Street. The Daily Beast could not independently confirm these figures.

The official Syrian news agency SANA claimed that eight people were killed and 47 were injured in regime-held Aleppo after opposition fighters bombed the city. Most of the victims were women and children, according to the agency.

Activists and residents of the ever-dwindling opposition pocket, an urban islet of about five square kilometers and home to as many as 100,000 people, spent the day signing off from social media, asking journalists to tell their story, and warning of their impending demise.

The Daily Beast was able to get in touch with Abdulkafi Al-Hamdo, a university teacher in the besieged city. The brief conversation was as follows:

TDB: “I hope you’re safe.”

AA: “I don’t think I will be tomorrow.”

TDB: “Do you expect all the remaining besieged neighborhoods will fall by tomorrow?”

AA: “No. Except over the body of every civilian. I won’t surrender my body, and my wife, and my daughter to the Assad regime without defending them… I hope that you’ll tell everyone what I’m saying.”

On a publicly visible WhatsApp feed belonging to the Aleppo Siege Media Center, al-Hamdo was more fatalistic. “Doomsday is held in Aleppo,” he said. “People are running don’t know where. People are under the rubble alive and no one can save them. Some people are injured in the streets and no one can go to help them [because] the bombs are [falling on] the same place.”

Award-winning blogger and activist Marcell Shehwaro, a native of Aleppo, shared on Facebook a message from one of her most “peaceful” and least-sectarian friends. “No Marcell, don’t worry,” it read. “I will kill myself, I won’t let them arrest me.”

Lina al-Shamy, a 26-year-old woman, posted a video of herself to Twitter. Speaking in fluent English, al-Shamy said: “To everyone who can hear me. We are here exposed to a genocide in the besieged city of Aleppo. This may be my last video. More than 50,000 civilians who rebelled against the dictator, al-Assad, are threatened with field executions or dying under bombing. According to activists, more than 180 people have been field executed in the areas the regime has recently retook control of by Assad’s gangs and the militias that support them. The civilians are stuck in a very small area that doesn’t exceed two square kilometers. With no safe zones, no life, every bomb is a new massacre. Save Aleppo, save humanity.”

Jouad al-Khateb had a similar message—one hesitates to call it valedictory— for the world. In Arabic, he told the camera: “Behind me is the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood. Since last night up to the present moment, it is being bombed with every kind of weapon; vacuum rockets, missiles. The rockets have not stopped since last night. The people coming out of Bustan al-Qasr are telling me it’s become a city of ghosts. More than 20 families remain under the rubble across various districts.” The White Helmets were unable to reach any of the victims, al-Khateb added.

“My message to those watching: Just stop the waterfall of blood for us. We don’t want to leave the besieged areas. Just stop the waterfall of blood. It’s as if this has become very normal for the international community, you know, a rocket falls, 20 or 30 people are killed, under the rubble, they can’t pull them out—that’s a totally normal thing. In any case, there’s no space for graves to bury them in. Let them be buried under the buildings. I think this will be my last video, because we’ve gotten bored of talking, bored of speeches.”

Al-Khateb was interrupted by a loud groaning sound.

“That’s a barrel bomb,” he said, referring to one of the regime’s most notorious improvised munitions, a metal canister filled with high explosives and shrapnel, which are dropped indiscriminately from helicopters.

Another trapped resident, Ameen al-Halabi, boasted on Facebook, “I’m waiting for death or imprisonment by the Assad forces. I would rather die on the soil of my land than be arrested by their faithless militias.” Al-Halabi asked his friends to forgive him if this was the last message he wrote.

On several rebel chat forums on the popular messaging application Telegram, there were calls for the youth of Syria to wage “jihad” against the conquerors of Aleppo, if only to defend the honor of women who had allegedly been raped in the course of the Assadist blitzkrieg.

Whether or not that particular war crime has yet occurred in Aleppo—though human-rights monitors have documented mass rape in Syrian regime prisons since the start of the conflict—the call for holy war against the regime may yet take hold. For this reason, the CIA and Joints Chiefs of Staff earlier advised the Obama administration that the fall of eastern Aleppo, apart from being a humanitarian catastrophe, would also constitute a counterterrorism threat to the United States. The radicalization of survivors is all but a foregone conclusion.

As for those already radicalized, they’ve had a remarkably auspicious week. While the regime was focused on reclaiming Aleppo, ISIS, or the self-proclaimed Islamic State, was able to completely retake another ancient Syrian city, Palmyra, which it had lost, to much international fanfare, last March.

Despite the gravity of the day’s events, and the many breaches of international law that led to the collapse of the rebel-held area, U.S. political leaders were slow to comment. President Obama has watched in silence as Russia and the Assad regime have committed what Secretary of State John Kerry called crimes against humanity, and Donald Trump has not once publicly mentioned the word “Aleppo” on his favorite social-media platform, Twitter, since being elected president of the United States a month ago. Kerry even meekly invited the Kremlin over the weekend to show “a little grace” in how it recaptured eastern Aleppo.

“The Holy Quran teaches that whoever kills an innocent is as—it is as if he has killed all mankind. And the Holy Quran also says whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.”

So did Obama tell a receptive audience in Cairo, in 2009, in a much-scrutinized maiden speech of his administration. (The second line in this sacred allusion, as it happens, is also the mantra of the now-helpless White Helmets.)

The president who came to office promising to repair the breach between the United States and the Islamic world, putatively caused by the war on terror and the invasion and occupation of Iraq, is now set to leave office having done little to stop to the slaughter or displacement of millions in Syria or the wholesale destruction of one of Islam’s most venerated cities.

The Final Hours for Aleppo

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Aleppo The Finale Hours

The end nears for besieged eastern Aleppo with 99% of the enclave now captured by the Syrian regime the last 2% with some estimated 200,000 civilians still inside is under heavy air and ground bombardment thousands of men and young boys who have surrenderd and past to the regime side of Aleppo are reported as missing corpses and dying peole are said to litter the battered area with no medical or rescue services left intact food water and electicty is depleted.

           Raw: Syrians Flee Eastern Aleppo

As the Syrian military continues to gain control of eastern Aleppo, which was previously a rebel-held enclave, thousands of civilians attempt to flee the war-torn area. (Dec. 12)

Civilians caught in the crossfire in Aleppo

CNN’s Fred Pleitgen goes inside a makeshift shelter housing displaced civilians in Jibrin, Syria.

Aleppo operation in final stages, Syrian general says

Anti-government fighters are now only in control of a small enclave in eastern Aleppo, after losing the important district of Sheikh Saeed in the early hours of Monday.

Is General Mattis on a Collision Course with Keith Ellison?

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For Gen. Mattis as SecDef, Mission is Iran

Keith Ellison’s Life as NIAC Cheerleader

The would-be head of the DNC has a long, cozy history with the Tehran lobby

By Armin Rosen

July of 2009 was not the most obvious time to argue against sanctioning Iran. In June, the regime violently suppressed a widespread protest movement that emerged in response to the alleged rigging of the country’s presidential election. Mir Hossein Moussavi, who the regime had declared the election’s loser, was under house arrest, securing the belligerent Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term in office. Iran was also operating 3,800 uranium enrichment centrifuges and stonewalling international nuclear monitors, in violation of international law. As a result, even President Obama and members of his administration who favored dialogue were suggesting the need for more intensive U.S. sanctions against a country that leaders of both parties agreed posed a potential nuclear threat. 

But for Keith Ellison, then a freshman congressman from Minnesota, mid-2006 was an ideal time for the U.S. to try something radically different in its relations with Tehran. “I haven’t been persuaded that the best thing for us to do is to rush to crippling sanctions,” said Ellison during a July 22, 2009 House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing covering recent developments in Iran. Although Ellison clarified he was “not in principle against sanctions,” he argued that Washington could not shape Iranian behavior without broader international cooperation: “We have sanctioned ourselves out of sanctions unilaterally,” Ellison said, years before many of the most restrictive U.S. measures had even been introduced.

Ellison also submitted an op/ed piece by Trita Parsi, the founder and president of what was then a little-known organization called the National Iranian American Council, and a strong proponent of closer U.S. ties with Iran, into the committee’s hearing record. (In a March 2011 speech at a NIAC event, Ellison thanks Trita Parsi for being “an indispensable partner” in helping to develop a 2009 bill that would have sanctioned individual human abusers in Iran while lifting U.S. restrictions on NGO work in the country, and refers to the NIAC founder as a “friend.”)

Ellison is now vying to be head of the Democratic National Committee, and his statements at the 2009 hearing are part of a larger pattern of taking views on Iran that put him in the minority of the party he hopes to lead. If Ellison does become DNC head, the Democrats will have elevated an outspoken proponent of a transformed U.S. policy towards Tehran who has taken a notably independent course, even in relation to other Democrats—including Obama, whose early outreach efforts were scuttled after the existence of Iran’s secret Fordow uranium enrichment facility was exposed in September of 2009. 

Ellison’s wariness of increased U.S. sanctions continued well beyond that point. During a March 2011 address at a National Iranian American Council event, Ellison voiced his support for the U.S. opening a diplomatic interest section or embassy in Tehran, something that the notably pro-engagement Obama has been careful not to publicly endorse. He also appeared to argue against sanctioning non-Iranian companies for doing business in Iran: “We have sanctioned Iran so much we have almost no levers to play on this,” said Ellison. “Now we’re at the point of sanctioning our economic partners who will then impose sanctions on them. Very sad, very not exactly a direct relationship.” 

In the same speech, Ellison cited the tear gas attacks against anti-regime Egyptian protesters as an example of when U.S. sanctions would be morally and strategically prudent. “You and I as Americans do not want any Egyptian who is fighting for civil or human rights to have to pick up a tear gas canister that says ‘made in America,’ said Ellison. “If that government’s going to oppress people they can’t do it with our participation. That’s a good reason for sanctions….” The Iranian nuclear program appeared to strike Ellison as a less deserving target.

It is unusual to hear even dovish Democrats talk about dramatically upgrading relations with a self-proclaimed enemy of the United States without exacting any changes in behavior from the country: As Ellison said in his NIAC talk, “When we put up an embassy or an interest section in another country, it’s not a gift to them… You’re not doing something for the other country by having someone to look after our interests there, and by withdrawing it, it’s not a punishment.” Along with the idiosyncratic Dennis Kucinich and Justin Amash, Ellison was one of only 11 members of Congress to vote against the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act in December of 2011, which expanded sanctions against Iran’s energy sector.

In August of 2013, NIAC lauded Ellison for being one of 20 members of the House of Representatives to “stand up to the war lobby” by opposing additional sanctions in a House vote that occurred three months before the start of serious, publicly acknowledged nuclear negotiations with Iran. In May of 2015, Ellison was one of only five Democratic members of Congress to vote against the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which submitted the July 2015 nuclear deal to a potential vote and compelled the White House to disclose documents relevant to the agreement to Congress. (A number of hawkish Republicans, including incoming CIA director Mike Pompeo, also voted against the bill, but because they felt its oversight mechanisms weren’t rigorous enough). 

Keith Ellison’s long-term relationship with Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam may be in his past, while leading Jewish Democrats like Chuck Schumer continue to vouch for his present status as a “friend” of Israel—even despite his embrace of clerics who fund Hamas and his public positions against funding missile defense programs for the Jewish State. Yet if Ellison does become DNC chair, it would bring enthusiastic and often uncritical supporters of the U.S.-Iran relationship closer to the center of power of the Democratic Party. It would also create an unavoidable contrast with the incoming Republican president, who has stocked his administration with national security figures who are deeply skeptical of Tehran—thereby cementing the Iran Deal as a defining feature of America’s partisan divide. 

**** Keith Ellison seems void of this information or he conveniently ignores it. Does the DNC really want him as Chairman?

Declassified IDF Map Shows Hezbollah Installations Embedded in Civilian Areas

Tower: A map released Tuesday by the Israel Defense Forces shows the degree to which Hezbollah has embedded itself into the Lebanese civilian population. The map shows hundreds of military emplacements, including weapons depots, rocket launchers, and terror tunnels, that Hezbollah has constructed in preparation for its next war against Israel.

2016-12-06_idf_hezbollah_map

Hezbollah’s deliberate positioning of military infrastructure in Lebanese villages, a tactic that the IDF has called a “war crime,” is consistent with the Iran-backed terror organization’s history of exploiting civilians to launch wars against Israel.

It was reported in 2013 that Hezbollah was paying poor Shi’ite families in southern Lebanon to allow them to store weapons in their homes, effectively making them human shields.

An Israeli defense official told The New York Times in May 2015 that Hezbollah’s buildup in southern Lebanese villages meant that “civilians are living in a military compound….We will hit Hezbollah hard, while making every effort to limit civilian casualties as much as we can…[but] we do not intend to stand by helplessly in the face of rocket attacks.” A few days later, a newspaper linked to Hezbollah confirmed the Israeli assessment.

Hezbollah has “turned the Shiite villages…into essentially missile silos,” Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in July.

Noting the threat posed by Hezbollah’s extensive rocket arsenal and its placement among civilians, Geoff Corn, an international military law expert at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, observed earlier this year that the resulting devastation from a war with these conditions would “both legally and morally…lie solely at the feet of Hezbollah.”

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which was passed unanimously to end the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, forbids countries from transferring weapons to the terror organization. However, Iran has continued to arm Hezbollah, and the Security Council has refused to act to enforce the resolution.

The IDF released a similar map two years ago showing that Hamas—also an Iranian client—had used a civilian neighborhood in Gaza to house its terrorist infrastructure.

**** There is more:

Iran possesses the largest and most diverse missile arsenal in the Middle East, with thousands of short and medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles capable of striking as far as Israel and southeast Europe.These weapon systems have become a central tool of Iranian power projection and anti-access/area-denial capabilities in the face of superior U.S. and Gulf Cooperation Council naval and air power in the Arabian Gulf region. While Iran has not yet tested or deployed a missile capable of striking the United States, it continues to hone longer-range missile technologies under the auspices of its space-launch program. In addition to increasing the quantity of its missile arsenal, Iran is investing in qualitative improvements to in its missile’s accuracy and lethality. Iran has also become a center for missile proliferation, supplying proxies such as Hezbollah and Syria’s al-Assad regime with a steady supply of missiles rockets, as well as local production capability. Furthermore, Iran is likely supplying Houthi rebel groups with short-range missiles in the ongoing conflict in Yemen.

Iranian Missiles

Fake U.S. Embassy in Ghana for 7 Years, Embarrassed?

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Is anyone at the U.S. State Department embarrassed that a fake embassy operated in Ghana for 7 years, anyone? Hello John Kerry, did you question Hillary at all on this. She was there in 2012. It should be noted that in 2012 Gene Cretz was the U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and he was also the Ambassador to Libya just prior to Ambassador Chris Stevens. Something really seems to smell here. Anyone response from Samantha Power, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, did she ever visit the country?

 SofRep

The Secretary will be going to Ghana, which is one of our most important democratic and development partners in Africa. She will be attending the funeral tomorrow of the late John Atta Mills. President Mills was recently in the United States to attend the G-8 meeting at Camp David, and five weeks before that he was in the United States on a state visit to meet with President Obama. You will all recall that on July 11th of 2009, President Obama traveled to Ghana on his trip to Africa and made his famous speech outlining our policy, in which he said we wanted partnership and not patronage, we wanted a mutual respectful and responsible relationship between the United States and Africa, and where he urged Africa to strengthen its democratic institutions, famously saying Africa needs strong institutions, not strong men.

Ghana has been a democracy, a multiparty democracy, since 1992. It has had some of the best elections in Africa. There have been changes not only of presidency but also of the political party in power. It probably has one of the best democracies on the continent, and it certainly has one of the most well-known and respected election commissioners on the continent.

Ghana has had a smooth transition since the death of John Atta Mills. The Vice President was sworn in very quickly without any political upheaval or turmoil. The country will have presidential elections in December. We think those elections will be like the last ones, hotly contested between the two leading parties. But we expect those elections will be free, fair, and transparent, and that they will also be peaceful and internationally monitored.

The Secretary will have an opportunity to meet with the new President, President Mahama, at his residence shortly after we arrive in Accra this evening. It’s out of respect and appreciation for the close relationship that President Mahama is doing this. We regard him as a friend of the United States. He is a Muslim in predominantly a Christian country, but the religious relationships between Muslims and Christians across Ghana is very, very good (inaudible). More here from the State Department spokesperson.

**** Now for the fake part and wonder if Hillary or Barack or John even went to the embassy which is standard protocol and if they did, they knew it was fake. Where there Marines protecting the building? Hah…

**** The exterior of the fake embassy in Accra, in an undated photo.

The exterior of the fake embassy in Accra, in an undated photo.  (State Dept.)

State Dept: No visas from fake American embassy in Ghana used to enter US

None of the altered visas issued at a fake U.S. embassy in West Africa for seven years appears to have been used to enter the United States, the State Department said Monday.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the visas were created from bought, stolen or otherwise illegally obtained passports.

U.S. officials this summer discovered and shuttered the fake embassy in Accra, Ghana. However, news reports about the criminal operation began to appear only in the past several weeks, following a Nov. 2 posting on the State Department’s website.

The embassy building flew a U.S. flag every morning for three days a week, and inside the building was a picture of President Obama.

The operation was purportedly run by Ghanaian and Turkish organized crime rings that “were able to pay off corrupt officials,” the State Department said in November.

And those who posed as consulate employees were in fact Turkish citizens who spoke English and Dutch.

Responding to skeptical reporters’ questions Monday, Kirby said those who bought the fake visas likely didn’t try to enter the country with them or were stopped at the border because the visas were of “pretty poor quality.”

He also said valid U.S. visas contain the kind of digital data that is nearly impossible to replicate.

A fake Netherlands embassy in Ghana also was shuttered in this summer’s sting.

Kirby said Monday that he has no reports of other fake operations but that the joint task force that shuttered the fake embassies, Operation Spartan Vanguard, continues to look for them.

The task force is led by U.S. Diplomatic Services and includes Canadian embassy officials and local police.

Those who bought the fake visas paid as much as $6,000.

Kirby also said Monday that none of the fake visas was stolen from the real U.S. embassy in Ghana.

The raids led to the recovery of 150 passports from 10 countries and visas from the U.S., India, South Africa and the European Schengen zone.

Those involved in the scheme would drive “to the most remote parts of West Africa” to find visa applicants and transport them to Accra, the State Department said. They also used fliers and billboards to lure victims from Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo.