U.S. diplomat in Guyana charged with visa-selling scheme

March 20, 2000
Web posted at: 7:51 p.m. EST (0051 GMT)

In this story: Gold bars seized Informant taped conversations RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. Embassy official stationed in Guyana and a Guyanese national were arrested for allegedly masterminding a U.S. visa-selling scheme that netted hundreds of thousands of dollars and gold bars, government investigators said Monday.

Thomas P. Carroll, a 32-year-old State Department Foreign Service officer who has been stationed in Guyana for the past two years, and Halim Khan, 36, a Guyanese citizen, were charged with conspiracy to sell U.S. visas to Guyanese and others in Guyana, the Justice Department said.

Carroll was arrested late Friday at his parents' home in the Chicago suburb of Palos Hills, Illinois. Khan was arrested at the airport in Miami as he was preparing to board a flight bound for Guyana, a coastal country of about 755,000 in northern South America.

Gold bars seized

Federal authorities said they seized more than $500,000 in cash and 10 gold bars from Carroll's safety deposit box at Chicago-area banks on Monday. They also found another $535,000 in assets from a dozen more of Carroll's accounts and took steps to tie up those funds.

Court complaints allege that Carroll, who earned less than $50,000 a year, and Khan conspired to sell 250 more U.S. visas in Guyana for more than $1 million in bribes.

Both men were charged with conspiracy to commit bribery and visa fraud in criminal complaints filed in federal court in Chicago.

Carroll is scheduled to appear at a detention hearing before a U.S. Magistrate in Chicago on Wednesday.

Kahn is being held in Miami, where he is scheduled to make an initial court appearance Monday afternoon. Prosecutors want to transfer him to Chicago.

Carroll was vice consul and chief of the non-immigrant visa section of the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown, Guyana, from 1998 to 1999. In that job, he had sole responsibility for reviewing and deciding on applications for U.S. visas from Guyanese nationals, Justice Department officials said.

After he was transferred to a new post within the embassy, Carroll attempted to enlist another embassy employee in the alleged scheme, officials said.

Informant taped conversations

Authorities say they began investigating the case in June 1999.

That led to a sting operation in which a cooperating witness recorded several conversations with Carroll. A meeting in Miami was arranged by the informant last Thursday.

Authorities say that in the meeting, Khan and Carroll asked the informant to approve about 250 visas for more than $1 million in U.S. currency.

According to criminal complaints, Carroll allegedly offered to pay the informant $4,000 for every future visa he approved.

Producer Terry Frieden and Reuters contributed to this report.

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U.S. State Department
CIA World Factbook - Guyana

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