The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

Get my Daily BS twice-a-day news stack directly to your email.


Feds say USCIS official put a price tag on citizenship — and skipped the background checks

by

BS BULLETIN:

  • A former senior USCIS officer and an alleged accomplice have been charged in a years-long scheme prosecutors say traded immigration approvals for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  • Prosecutors allege Lukman Owolabi Ganiyu bypassed interviews, background checks, supervisory review and other safeguards to expedite immigration applications — including for people allegedly not eligible under federal law.
  • Court records cited by multiple outlets put payments received by Ganiyu at nearly $960,000 through digital transfers and cash deposits.

A former senior U.S. immigration official allegedly discovered a remarkably simple way around America’s citizenship bureaucracy:

Money.

Federal prosecutors have charged former U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officer Lukman Owolabi Ganiyu and alleged financial intermediary Adeniyi Akeem Somoye in what authorities describe as a multi-year scheme to manipulate and expedite immigration applications in exchange for payments.

And according to prosecutors, this wasn’t merely a matter of moving paperwork to the top of the pile.

Ganiyu allegedly bypassed required interviews, background checks, supervisory reviews, jurisdictional restrictions and normal USCIS processing procedures while approving applications between December 2019 and March 2026.

The applications included petitions for relatives, permanent residency applications and naturalization cases.

Federal authorities say many of the applicants were not eligible for the immigration benefits they received.

Investigators also allege Ganiyu manipulated USCIS systems to take control of cases that normally belonged elsewhere, including applications assigned to field offices in Minneapolis, Charlotte and Houston. That allowed him to circumvent local supervisors and personally handle the cases, according to prosecutors.

The alleged arrangement extended to Ganiyu’s purported partner in the scheme. Prosecutors say Ganiyu expedited Somoye’s own citizenship application and later approved residency applications for Somoye’s wife and child.

Then there’s the money.

Court documents cited by the New York Post and Fox News show Ganiyu allegedly received approximately $671,438 through Zelle and Cash App, along with another $287,830 in cash deposits prosecutors contend were structured to conceal their source. That’s roughly $959,000.

Somoye, meanwhile, allegedly handled approximately $1.7 million in transfers involving applicants and deposited another $449,010 in cash while taking a cut of payments. Investigators say WhatsApp helped unravel the operation.

Authorities discovered thousands of messages and hundreds of calls involving Ganiyu, Somoye and immigration applicants whose cases they handled. Most of the citizenship applications involved people from African countries, according to prosecutors.

Ganiyu resigned from USCIS in March, citing personal reasons. Federal agents arrested both men Sept. 2. They are charged with conspiracy to receive illegal gratuities by a public official, and each faces up to five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000 if convicted.

The investigation was conducted by the USCIS Office of Investigations, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general and the FBI’s Dallas field office.

“Selling immigration benefits for cash is a blatant abuse of public trust,” U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould said in announcing the charges. “When a federal official puts a price tag on lawful status, we will intervene immediately.”

The charges are allegations, and both defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

MY QUICK TAKE

Background check? Interview? Supervisor?

Apparently there was an alleged express lane. And at nearly a million bucks, nobody was confusing it with E-ZPass.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

today’s hot news