Both the ICTOP Secretariat and our ICTOP 2003 Slovenian conference
organisers had at least two if not more requests from Nigeria for
assistance with visas applications on the basis of attending our meeting.
In my case the request was for a "group" (no indication of how many
people) wanting to get visas to come to Britain, not Slovenia!!  (The
excuse so that as there is no Slovenian Embassy in Nigeria they wanted to
enter Britain so that they could go to Slovenia's London embassy to apply
for their visas to attend our September meeting in Ljubljana.)

I checked out the names and organisations with both the Membership Unit in
Paris and the President of ICOM Nigeria, and both confirmed that the
organisations and names were unknown.  I also checked out with the UK
Foreign Ministry (since in our academic institutions we have a big problem
with people trying to get into Europe through fake academic registrations,
and have special procedures in the case of suspicious applications).
(The named organisations and individuals are therefore currently being
checked out by the British High Commission in Nigeria.)

Despite the apparently heart-breaking stories you will receive, don't have
any sympathy for this sort of group.  The chances are that if they get a
positive reply they will then be charging the people they plan to supply
with false papers anything from $2000 - $5000 per person upwards in
addition to the cost of the flight.

My policy is to reply immediately saying that our meetings are not public
conferences, and are open only to members of ICOM.



Patrick Boylan
(ICTOP)

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