Haitian National Pleads Guilty To Running Visa Fraud Scheme Involving More Than 100 Fraudulent Visa Applications

NEW ORLEANS - U.S. Attorney Peter G. Strasser announced that EMMANUEL PRIVA, age 38, a citizen of Haiti, pleaded guilty Thursday, June 13, 2019 to one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and to two counts of visa fraud.  PRIVA admitted that from 2013 to 2018, he attempted to fraudulently obtain visas for more than 100 aliens, some of whom succeeded in obtaining visas to travel to the United States.

PRIVA ran the scheme from his home in Harvey, Louisiana, and other locations.  In exchange for money, PRIVA agreed to assist Haitian nationals in fraudulently obtaining visitor visas to travel to the United States.  After receiving payment from the Haitian nationals, PRIVA submitted online visa applications containing false information, created false documents to support the applications, and coached the aliens on how to deceive consular officers at interviews for the visas.  The scheme was focused on making it appear that the Haitian nationals intended to temporarily visit, as opposed to illegally immigrating to the United States.

At sentencing, which is scheduled for October 3, 2019, PRIVA faces maximum terms of imprisonment of (10) ten years for each visa fraud conviction and (5) five years for the conspiracy conviction, supervised release of up to three years, and a fine of up to $250,000.

U.S. Attorney Strasser praised the work of the U.S. Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), Criminal Fraud Investigations and Overseas Criminal Investigations Divisions, in jointly investigating this matter, with support from its New Orleans Resident Office.  U.S. Attorney Strasser also thanked the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate and the Haitian National Police’s Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire (Central Directorate of the Judicial Police) for their assistance. 

Assistant United States Attorney Chandra Menon is in charge of the prosecution.