Nigeria Strengthens the Capacity of Consular Officials on Detecting Document Fraud Detection

Organised crime groups make frequent use of forged or altered documents to traffic people for the purpose of sexual exploitation, organ removal or labour exploitation.

Fraudulent documents are used to facilitate human trafficking, terrorism, smuggling, drug trafficking, immigration violations, and many other crimes.

In an age of machine-readable passports, facial-recognition software and iris scanning, it can take a high level of skill to forge documents convincingly. But document forgery is still a common practice by organized crime groups, and it will take a well trained and skilled consular officials to detect such documents.

On 30^th and 31^st May, 2023, FIIAPP partnered with Nigeria Immigration Service and Nigeria Police Force to train consular officers on how to detect fraud documents. The training which held in Lagos State, was part of the Action Against Trafficking in Persons(A-TIPSOM), a project funded by the European Union.

Twenty (20) consular officers from the Spanish, German, Italian, Brazilian and United States Consulates in Lagos were trained using intelligence gathering equipment. The training was facilitated by experts from Nigeria Immigration Service and Nigeria Police Force

In an opening remark, the team leader of A-TIPSOM Project, Mr. Federico Milan said that FIIAPP is committed to supporting the training of more consular officials so that they will be equipped to detect fraudulent documents.

 Speaking at the programme, Daniel Losada Miller, Consul General, Spanish Consulate, commended FIIAPP and European Union for hosting the training He said that the training will go a long way to help consular officials to detect fraud documentation from suspecting members of organized crime.