The FBI is warning the public about a fraud scheme targeting foreign students living in the United States on valid student visas.
Scammers have targeted students from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan so far, the FBI said in a public service announcement on Tuesday.
The Context
The alert comes as President Donald Trump is on a trip to the Middle East, with stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.
In the past month, the Trump administration stripped about 5,000 foreign students of their legal status in the U.S. as part of a crackdown on those involved in campus protests and pro-Palestinian activism, putting them at risk of deportation. But as court challenges mounted, the administration said it was restoring the previously terminated legal statuses of students while developing a framework to guide future action. In late April, the federal government said it was expanding the reasons international students can be stripped of their legal status in the U.S.
What To Know
The scheme involves scammers contacting foreign students studying in the U.S. or those in the process of coming to the U.S. and impersonating government or immigration officials “claiming the student is out of status for violations of F-1 student visa requirements or otherwise facing immigration issues,” the FBI said.
“Victims are threatened with prosecution or deportation and asked to pay an unknown entity or bank account to process immigration paperwork, pay university registration fees, or pay a legal fee.”
Sometimes, scammers will claim to be agents from the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations or U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the FBI said.
“In some instances, the scammers vary this scheme by presenting themselves as government officials from foreign countries,” the FBI said. Diplomats from the UAE Embassy in Washington, D.C, have been impersonated, according to the bureau.
To add credibility to the scam, scammers will spoof officials phone numbers, speak professionally and useaccents that match the caller’s claimed origin, the FBI said.
The FBI warned students to be wary of unsolicited communication from someone purporting to be from the government, especially by phone. The bureau said students should verify they are speaking to a government official by hanging up and contacting the agency through a number obtained through a third party and asking for the agent or department they were speaking with.
They are also warned against providing any information without verifying the identity of the caller, providing two-factor authentication codes used to log-in to accounts or devices or downloading files to their phone or computer without verifying the source.
What People Are Saying
The FBI said: “Scammers have also used fictitious names that sound like government agencies, impersonate US universities, and send links to fake websites. Scammers may spoof the phone number of government agencies, foreign embassies, or universities. They may speak professionally and use the accents and/or language matching the purported location of the callers.”
What’s Next
The FBI is asking anyone who believes they may have been targeted to report it at ic3.gov and include as much information as possible.
They also gather all relevant documentation and notify their home country’s embassy and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Anyone who has made a payment should contact their bank immediately to attempt to reverse any fraudulent wire transfers.
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