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In what immigration advocates say has become an all-too-familiar crime, Luc Fikiri Matthews, 47, misrepresented himself "in order to attract business from noncitizens who did not have legal permanent resident status in the United States," an indictment returned by a grand jury in Camden alleges.
Matthews then prepared phony paperwork for these clients -- who otherwise would have been deported -- which made them eligible for special visas to remain here, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger said.
The particular "U Visas" were designed to help protect victims of certain crimes from future harm in their native countries by allowing them to remain in the United States, he said.
Some of the documents prepared by Matthews contained bogus names, signatures and other false identification, Sellinger said.
One application, in particular, reportedly included a misspelled hospital invoice for medical treatment following an alleged mugging of a client.
None of the clients got the visas, Sellinger noted.
Matthews came to the United States in 1996 after fleeing a civil war in Burundi, according to published reports. He became a U.S. citizen and in 2005 created a non-profit business known as the African Hispanic Immigration Organization (AHIO) to purportedly help other immigrants do the same.
Matthews also reportedly ran up an arrest record in New Jersey and Pennsylvania for white-collar crimes that included ID theft and forgery.
Despite his history, he obtained accreditation to assist immigrants as a non-lawyer.
Matthews reportedly went to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2018, referring to himself as the "grand prince" of his native village of Luvingi and claiming he was running for president of the Central African nation formerly known as Zaire.
That same year, records show, authorities in Monmouth County charged Matthews charged with theft and the unauthorized practice of law. He reportedly took a deal from prosecutors and paid a fine after spending 45 days in jail.
It wasn't long before prosecutors in Camden County filed theft charges of their own.
Matthews had his federal accreditation terminated but continued to operate, authorities alleged.
Then came the news this past Thursday, Feb. 24, of the federal indictment out of U.S. District Court in Camden earlier this month. It charges Matthews with immigration documents fraud and aggravated identity theft, said Sellinger, the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey.
Sellinger credited special agents of the Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Investigations with the investigation leading to the indictment, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Aliabadi of his Camden office.
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