Big Fraud in the Far Abroad: Part I of a Painful Recollection

This is a true story.

Well, as I have said before about other recollections, as true as memory lets it be. I am deliberately not going to do research on this story; I want to tell it as I remember it. Perhaps the final record, whatever that is, will show that I got some incidents out of order. So be it.

In addition, my account is shaped by further caveats: while the names of the principals in this tale have been stated since this matter eventually became public and is now a matter of record, other names have been changed or just omitted. I had to compress details for brevity's sake--and it will still be a long account. I, unfortunately, also had to omit other details on how we cracked the case so as not to comprise means and methods. During this period, we worked closely with the Sri Lankan and Maldivian governments, as well as the British and the Australian High Commissions on sensitive issues dealing with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the presence of AQ terrorists. I will leave that out, too. My point is that we were focused outwards; we did not think some of our own would betray us. We trusted the people whom the personnel system sent--and that proved a grave mistake.

Above all, however, this is a complicated story, with lots of temptations to head off on tangents. It has a complex back story, one which I can touch on only relatively lightly here. In addition, the story has many moving parts located in many different parts of the globe over a considerable span of time; it will be tough to keep it all making sense. I will try. I have left out some salacious details (might put them back in for the Hollywood version): This is a suitable for work and family blog.

One last cautionary note: I have to show circumspection when dealing with certain people--that will become clear as the story progresses. For the sake of fairness, unlike much of what I have written on this blog before, the idiocy, the vindictiveness, and, perhaps, the outright malfeasance that will be described cannot be put at the feet of President Obama and his inept minions. In fact, one major dolt whom I would love to name but cannot for a variety of reasons was a senior Bush political appointee. Democrats do not have a lock on stupidity; it is a bipartisan commodity.

OK, here we go.

I was the Deputy Chief of Mission in Sri Lanka, 2000-2003. The head of admin was Long Lee, a Vietnamese-American then in her late-forties with a colorful story as to how she ended up in the US Foreign Service. Just how much of this colorful story was true, well, I guess she and God know, but nobody else I could find does. I never thought the Department did a good job of verifying her life’s account. She told of having been a Foreign Service National (FSN) in Saigon, married to an ARVN officer killed by the VC, and barely making it out of Vietnam ahead of the NVA’s conquest of Saigon--these details would change in various tellings. She landed in Washington, D.C., became a US citizen, married an older FSO, whom she subsequently divorced, but with whom she remained friends, and joined the Foreign Service as an administrative cone office--these details, in particular, the order in which they occurred also changed in different tellings. Along the way, she married, again; this third husband was the one I met in Sri Lanka. This spouse, whom everyone called AC, was some 18 years younger than Long. He had been a Marine Security Guard (MSG) when he met the apparently just-divorced Long. After they married, he left the Marines, and became a dependent spouse. She got assignments in Africa, and back in Vietnam, which was odd--as we will see. AC worked at our Colombo embassy, as he had at others, as a visa associate in the consular section. They arrived roughly the same time we did, the summer of 2000, and we became friends. I could not foresee how much I would regret that friendship.

Long and AC arrived in Sri Lanka from an assignment in Hanoi, following one at the US Embassy in Fiji. At both of those posts, as noted, she had worked in admin and he in the visa section. They brought with them a large family of adopted children from Vietnam, and one severely handicapped and very pretty little girl from Cape Verde where they also had served. It was all a bit weird, but in this age one may not question family structures. Throughout my time at post I occasionally noted other “adopted” children coming in and out, elder “relatives” staying and quietly leaving, and a host of young women who would come and go and be introduced as “relatives,” children from her first or second marriage, and friends. Long and AC were famous for their dinner parties, as Long was a superb cook. I noticed on a couple of occasions, however, that she had various of her “children,” teenagers or early twenties, working in the kitchen, and whom she treated rather harshly. On more than one occasion, I remarked to Long, after she had introduced me to one of her “children,” “I thought you said before her name was Jasmine, now it’s Lilly? I thought Lilly was that one over there.” Long would laughingly say, “We all look alike to you, right?” I must state that my wife, who worked then in the security office, was always a bit more openly suspicious than I about arrangements at Long’s house. I, perhaps, did not pay them the attention I should have--my excuse being the press of other work, especially after 9/11.

Long proved outstanding at her job. She wrote well, had a mastery of numbers and budgets, considerable personal charm, a sense of humor, a wide network of contacts, and, above all, an unparalled ability to cut through admin logjams and red tape. There seemed no problem of logistics, management, or administration that she could not solve. You could go to her and say, “We have a surprise 50-person VIP delegation arriving tomorrow. We need to reserve hotel rooms, get them transportation, set up their schedules and host a reception for 400. We need dancing bears, elephants, unicorns, and manatees . . ..” You get the point. She made things happen. She had her local staff running like a Swiss watch. Long drew the attention of a senior Bush State appointee, who thought her the ideal officer; he had big plans for her onward assignments, and made it clear he was her protector.

AC was an energetic, good looking, athletic, big, loud, personable man’s man. He hunted, fished, played superb golf and tennis, swore like a sailor, and was always launching out on some new hobby or another, including learning to play the piano. He almost talked me into going 50/50 with him on buying a locally made fishing boat. AC worked hard in the visa section, and was very knowledgable about US immigration law and procedures, and citizen services. When my eldest son would come to visit, he worked as AC’s assistant in the consular section; they, among other things, would pay visits to imprisoned Americans. AC taught him a great deal about consular law and services. I did find troubling AC’s fascination with get-rich-quick schemes; he seemed perpetually talking about how to make money with this or that investment, and had all sorts of schemes to game the stock market. He, at times, would mention in passing investing in a limo service and in a restaurant. That, too, shows up later.

I should mention a few other key persons in this story. Our security officer (RSO) and his deputy were excellent. Given the violent civil war raging in the country, and especially after 9/11, they had a very tough job. The embassy in Colombo received more white powder letters than any other embassy in the world. We were besieged with--thankfully--fake anthrax envelopes and bomb threats. Each one of these many envelopes had to be treated as the real thing. The RSO and his deputy set up some excellent procedures--which I won’t describe--for dealing with this flood of hostile “correspondence.”

The new Ambassador was a personable and experienced FSO. He and I became friends and had to deal with a host of issues, not the least of which was pressure from Washington to make the US a major player in ending the Sri Lanka civil war. I have described this in other postings and won’t go over it again. He was in the US when 9/11 happened, and barely missed by minutes being on one of the hijacked planes that crashed into the Twin Towers.

There we were, chugging along, fat, dumb, and happy to be doing the work of America in a faraway and exotic land. We had a few glitches (one described here ) but, in general, it was a well-run mission producing good stuff in the war on terror, on nuclear non-proliferation (yes), on finding a solution to the local civil war, and promoting American products. We also worked hard and successfully to undermine EU efforts to set up an outrageous extradition regime under the Treaty of Rome that would allow the EU to grab and try Americans and citizens of other countries that did not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. Undersecretary John Bolton was absolutely superb in the battle to ensure that Americans, especially our military, would not get haled before some European-based court on spurious charges.

Then two bolts of lightening very briefly illuminated the problem scenario that was developing. One came courtesy of the ATF; the other, courtesy of the Netherlands' immigration service.

To be continued in a bit--or when I get around to it. I have to plan carefully the telling of the rest of this tale of woe--the single biggest case of visa corruption in the history of the State Department.

Part II here.