Federal agents arrested a Rochester father of five from Afghanistan on Thursday, charging him with providing forged documents to obtain a visa.
The man, identified in court papers as Dilbar Gul Dilbar, came to the United States with his wife and young children last year on a Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV — reserved for Afghan and Iraqi interpreters who assisted the U.S. military and government officials.
He submitted the allegedly fraudulent documents in the months leading up to and immediately after Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in 2021, leading to a chaotic U.S. withdrawal. It was his second attempt to obtain an SIV, having been unable to supply the paperwork needed years earlier.
The paperwork starts an extensive vetting process. Dilbar was approved last March, granted admission to the United States the following month, and issued a green card last July. Law enforcement was investigating him by December, court records show, obtaining a search warrant for his Google mail account.
It was not immediately clear whether he ever worked as an interpreter.
FBI agents arrested Dilbar at his workplace Thursday morning, and later searched the family’s house on Blossom Road, assisted by Rochester police and other area law enforcement. He made an initial appearance in federal court on Thursday afternoon, and remains in custody, deemed a serious flight risk by the U.S. government.
The United States issues a limited number of SIVs each year for Aghan nationals.
There were 1,978 issued to principal applicants in the first three months of last year, including his; another 7,336 to family members, records show.
Dilbar came to Rochester through World Relief resettlement agency, and the local grassroots agency Keeping our Promise helped the family when they arrived. On Thursday, the group’s executive director Ellen Smith and other supporters gathered at the Blossom Road residence, and began to sort out what had happened.
“It’s unfortunate,” said Smith, who had limited detail as Keeping Our Promise was not part of his visa application or advocacy process.
One of the things Keeping Our Promise helps people with is tracking down employment verification and other needed documentation. Smith said the scams that Dilbar allegedly got involved with are not common.
“Eleven years, we've never had this happen,” said Smith, who has assisted more than 1,000 SIV refugees and their families since 2014.
Dilbar first applied for an SIV in summer 2016, records show, under the name Diblar Gul Taj Ali Khan.
That attempt hit an immediate roadblock. He was denied the necessary approval from the U.S. Embassy Kabul Chief of Mission. The reason cited was a “lack of sufficient documents to make a determination,” explaining that the author of a letter of recommendation he submitted did not respond to the embassy’s request to confirm the letter’s authenticity.
He persisted, and in November 2017, allegedly submitted a forged approval letter from the embassy with the same date as his denial. The attempt failed, and he was again denied in January 2018.
He re-applied in 2021, including a letter of employment purportedly from an American company working with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, listing his employment period as Jan. 1, 2017 through Aug. 10, 2019.
“Dilbar Gul has been working in our company since 2017,” the letter read. “He has worked in the position of an Interpreter. He has always been an efficient and hardworking employee, and we are very happy to have worked with him during employment years. In case you require any other information for our end feel free to contact us. We will provide you with the require (sic) information.”
But the Department of State investigated the company and, the complaint states, determined it “was engaged in a large-scale scheme to provide fraudulent documents, such as employment verification letters, in exchange for a fee. All SIV employment verification letters authored by this entity are fraudulent.”
He also submitted a letter of recommendation signed by a man later identified as Manuel Ray James, who allegedly was involved in an “advance-fee scam” selling fraudulent documents.
James used what appeared to be a military email address, court records show. He was not a government employee, an FBI spokesperson said, but declined further comment. The FBI also would not say what if any legitimate role the American company had in Afghanistan as “the investigation is ongoing.”
Includes reporting by Gino Fanelli and Jake Streamer.
