GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC):

The United States Embassy here has stopped accepting supporting documents with visa application forms from Guyanese in a bid to curb fraud, officials confirmed yesterday.

A statement from the embassy said Guyanese seeking tourist visas would no longer be required to provide employment letters, bank statements, transcripts or letters of support from friends and family because applicants were routinely presenting false supporting documents.

The embassy said most visa applications would now be based solely on interviews with local applicants.

"Specific documents will still be required for applications for visa categories with legal requirements for certain documents, including student visas, seaman visas, employment visas, and tourist visas for individuals seeking medical treatment in the U.S.," the embassy added.

It said "applicants for visas to attend training or conferences will also still be permitted to submit documents attesting to the training or conference that they wish to attend".

Guyanese travellers have also been a headache for some regional countries, with Barbados immigration authorities this year reiterating their concern that many Guyanese continue to enter the island with fake documents.

Last May, Guyanese Latoyna Nikita Assing was deported from the island for overstaying her visit, two months later she was in the dock in the District D Magistrate's Court, charged with trying to enter the island with someone else's passport.

Magistrate Robert Simmons jailed her for two months.

Deported

Another Guyanese, Jermaine Lindore, was charged with a similar offence after he was deported from the island three years earlier.

However, he was luckier when Magistrate Simmons reprimanded him and turned him over to Barbados Immigration for deportation.

But the impenitent Lindore recently went back with a Guyanese passport in the name of Joel Emmil Brewley and was snared in an Immigration/police dragnet during a raid on a residence on the island's west coast.