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Paul J. McNulty
United States Attorney

Eastern District of Virginia
2100 Jamieson Avenue Tel: (703) 299-3758
United States Attorney Alexandria, Virginia 22314

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Alexandria, Virginia
WWW.USDOJ.GOV

For further information contact
Sam Dibbley at (703) 299-3822


November 22, 2004
   


Paul J. McNulty, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, announces the filing of charges against twenty-six defendants for asylum fraud; labor certification fraud; identification document fraud; and conspiracy. The 26 defendants and the specific charges lodged against them are as follows:

1) Hans Gouw, age 53, of Fairfax, Virginia (asylum fraud);

2) Isnayanti Gouw, age 35, of Fairfax, Virginia (asylum fraud);

3) Jenny Gandasaputra, age 51, of Fairfax, Virginia (asylum fraud);

4) Herman Tanudjaja, age 59, of Fairfax, Virginia (conspiracy to commit identification document fraud);

5) Johnson Aliffin, age 33, of Springfield, Virginia (conspiracy to commit asylum fraud);

6) Ratna Hartanto, age 38, of Alexandria, Virginia (asylum fraud);

7) Rosita Setyawati, age 46, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (asylum fraud);

8) Brigitta Parera, age 35, of Vienna, Virginia (asylum fraud);

9) Willy Irsan, age 33, of Centreville, Virginia (asylum fraud);

10) Achnita Supomo, age 37, of Centreville, Virginia (asylum fraud);

11) Lestari Nugroho, age 27, of Portland, Oregon (asylum fraud);

12) Raymond Marschall, age 26, of Fairfax, Virginia (conspiracy to commit identification document fraud);

13) Hanny Kembuan, age 46, of Glendale, California (asylum fraud);

14) Herlina Suherman, age 28, of East Lansing, Michigan (asylum fraud);

15) Surya Halim, age 33, of Centreville, Virginia (asylum fraud);

16) Danny Susanto, age 34, of Fairfax, Virginia (conspiracy to commit asylum fraud);

17) Henry Lee, age 29 (address unknown) (conspiracy to commit asylum fraud);

18) Albert Warong, age 75, of Gaithersburg, Maryland (conspiracy to commit identification document fraud);

19) Sari Tanudjaya, age 48, of Gaithersburg, Maryland (conspiracy to commit identification document fraud);

20) Johannis Ticoalu, age 57, of Alexandria, Virginia (conspiracy to commit identification document fraud);

21) Megawaty Gandasaputra, age 46, of Fairfax, Virginia (asylum fraud);

22) Michael Wright, age 43, of Fairfax, Virginia (conspiracy to commit labor certification fraud);

23) Irawan Muljadi, age 55 (address unknown) (conspiracy to commit identification document fraud);

24) Nany Kumala, age 49, of Burke, Virginia (identification document fraud);

25) Silvy Karageorge, age 47, of Manassas, Virginia (asylum fraud); and

26) Joandi Gani, age 19, of Fairfax, Virginia (labor certification fraud).

Twenty-three of the defendants are Indonesian citizens; two are United States citizens; and one is believed to be an Australian of Indonesian descent. The 23 defendants who are Indonesian citizens have the following U.S. immigration status: three are lawful permanent residents; 15 have been granted asylum; and five have no legal status.

The charges announced today are the result of a nearly two-year investigation into the illegal practices of Indonesian immigration brokers and consultants operating in Northern Virginia and Maryland. Four principal brokerages were investigated: (1) the Chinese Indonesian American Society, operated by defendant Hans Gouw and located in Fairfax Station, Virginia; (2) Asian American Placement Services, operated by defendants Megawaty Gandasaputra and Michael Wright and located in Springfield, Virginia; (3) Kumala Nusantara, operated by defendant Nany Kumala and located in Burke, Virginia; and (4) Chinese Indonesian Pribumi Community Service, operated by defendant Silvy Karageorge and located in Manassas, Virginia.

As the affidavit filed in support of these charges details, the government alleges that the owners, employees, and associates of these brokerages knowingly defrauded the federal government and the Commonwealth of Virginia from at least late 1999 through the present. In particular, the government’s investigation revealed that the defendants aided thousands of Indonesian immigrants living throughout the United States to apply by fraud for a wide variety of government benefits in return for substantial fees. These benefits included asylum in the United States; green cards through alien labor certification; Virginia driver’s licenses and identification cards; United States passports; and social security cards.

The government’s affidavit alleges that the principal frauds pursued by the defendants were asylum fraud, labor certification fraud, and identification document fraud. With regard to asylum, the government’s investigation revealed that several of the defendants were routinely preparing fraudulent asylum applications for Indonesian clients in return for a fee of $2,000 or more. These applications typically contained false claims that the applicant had been raped, sexually assaulted, beaten, or robbed by Muslims in Indonesia on account of the applicant’s Chinese ethnicity or adherence to Christianity. Many of these claims were stock accounts repeated with little variation from application to application. The defendants often supported these claims with counterfeit Indonesian documents, such as birth certificates, baptismal certificates, and police reports. The investigation also revealed that these same defendants coached their clients to exploit the perceived sympathies of the asylum officers and immigration judges assigned to consider the applications. For example, the defendants counseled married immigrants to feature the wife as the lead applicant because the defendants believed asylum officers and immigration judges were more sympathetic to women and less likely to question them aggressively. Applicants were told to cry, plead, and avoid positive references to Indonesia. The defendants also supplied their immigrant clients with Indonesian interpreters who would enhance and correct the testimony clients gave asylum officers during asylum interviews.

With regard to identification document fraud, the government alleges that several of the defendants routinely aided Indonesian clients to obtain Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) driver’s licenses, learner’s permits, and identification cards by fraud. In particular, the government found that the defendants prepared fraudulent DMV residency certifications (DMV form DL51) for nearly 1,900 Indonesian immigrants. The immigrants used these residency certifications to prove to the DMV that they lived at specific addresses in Northern Virginia when in fact the applicants lived elsewhere.

With regard to labor certification fraud, the government alleges that three of the defendants prepared fraudulent applications for labor certification on behalf of Indonesian immigrants seeking to remain in the United States. These applications claimed that the defendants intended to hire the immigrants for jobs no U.S. workers were willing or qualified to fill. Had the applications been approved, the immigrants in question would have been issued a green card and allowed to work and remain in the United States legally. The government, however, found that much of the information in the applications was false, including the existence of the job, the qualifications of the immigrant, and the immigrant’s intended U.S. address.

The investigation was conducted by a task force of federal and state law enforcement agencies. The participating agencies include the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Department of Homeland Security), the Fairfax County Police Department, the Diplomatic Security Service (Department of State), the Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service (Department of Treasury), the Social Security Administration, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Secret Service (Department of Homeland Security), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Department of Justice). The task force received important assistance from several other agencies including the Office of Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations within Citizenship and Immigration Services (Department of Homeland Security); the Executive Office for Immigration Review (Department of Justice); the Virginia Employment Commission; and the Employment and Training Administration (Department of Labor).

Assistant United States Attorneys John Morton, Michael Rich, Rebeca Bellows, and David Laufman, and Special Assistant United States Attorney Beth Gibson are prosecuting the case for the government.

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