Five men in central Louisiana have pleaded guilty to running a visa fraud scheme that lasted nearly ten years. Four of them held law enforcement positions, including three police chiefs and one town marshal. The fifth was a local businessman who paid the officers to certify fake crime reports. The scheme ran from December 2015 to July 2025 and centered on the U-Visa program, a United States immigration benefit for crime victims who help police.
The defendants are Glynn Dixon, former Forest Hill police chief; Chad Doyle, former Oakdale police chief; Tebo Onishea, former Glenmora police chief; Michael Slaney, former Oakdale Ward 5 marshal; and Chandrakant Patel, an Oakdale businessman. All five were indicted on July 2, 2025, on a 62-count indictment covering conspiracy, visa fraud, mail fraud, bribery, and money laundering. Dixon entered the last guilty plea on June 30, closing out the case.
How the Fake Robbery Reports Were Produced
Patel collected money from foreign nationals who wanted to be listed as robbery victims. Immigrants paid Patel around $20,000 each to obtain a police report naming them as a crime victim. Patel then turned to the four law enforcement officials to generate the paperwork.
The officers charged a flat rate for each name. Patel paid the law enforcement officers roughly $5,000 per fabricated report, and prosecutors say there were hundreds of names in total. Dixon alone admitted to producing dozens of these reports in under two years.
- Dixon admitted to generating at least 69 doctored reports for Patel between August 2023 and July 2025
- The officers signed I-918B certification forms falsely stating that individuals were cooperating crime victims
- Patel attempted to bribe a Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office agent with $5,000 in February 2025 for one more fake report
- The indictment names 24 alleged crime victims, and all of them share the last name Patel
What a U-Visa is and Why the Program was Targeted
The U-Visa is not a routine work or travel visa. Congress created it through the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act in October 2000. The program lets certain crime victims stay in the US temporarily if they cooperate with police investigations.
To qualify, an applicant needs a certified police report confirming they were a victim of a qualifying crime, such as armed robbery. That requirement is exactly what the Louisiana defendants exploited. Because a local police chief can certify a report, the scheme only needed a handful of corrupt officials rather than a large network.
Patel himself used the program. He received a U-Visa in 2023 based on his own claimed status as an armed robbery victim, even though he was allegedly the person organizing the fraud.
How Investigators Caught the Scheme
The case started with a data anomaly, not a tip from inside the ring. US Citizenship and Immigration Services fraud officers noticed a surge in U-Visa applications tied to police reports from a sparsely populated part of central Louisiana. Forest Hill, where Dixon served as chief, has a population of just over 600 people, making the volume of reported armed robberies statistically implausible.
That flag triggered a multi-agency investigation. Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and Louisiana State Police all joined the probe, working under a Homeland Security Task Force as part of a federal initiative called Operation Take Back America. This task force structure was established under Executive Order 14159, which directs federal resources toward immigration enforcement and related fraud.
What Officials Said About the Guilty Pleas
US Attorney Zachary A. Keller announced the pleas and did not soften his language about the officers involved. He said the defendants’ conduct “endangered our community and undermined the public trust in the immigration system solely to line their own pockets.”
Matt Wright, the acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New Orleans, framed the case as a warning to other officials. He said HSI “will investigate, dismantle these schemes, and work to bring those responsible to justice” whenever public officials misuse immigration programs, according to a statement carried in reporting on the final guilty plea. His comment reflects a broader message federal agencies have repeated across similar cases nationwide this year.
How This Case Compares with Other U-visa Fraud Schemes
The Louisiana case is not an isolated pattern. Similar staged-crime schemes have surfaced in other states, though the mechanics differ. In Massachusetts, ten Indian nationals were indicted for staging armed robberies of convenience stores so store clerks could falsely claim crime-victim status for U-Visa applications, an operation authorities say ran through fake incidents rather than paperwork alone.
That Massachusetts case turned dangerous in a way the Louisiana scheme did not. One staged robbery went wrong in 2024 when a bystander, unaware the incident was fake, shot the person posing as the attacker. No injuries of that kind were reported in the Louisiana conspiracy, which relied on corrupt officials fabricating paperwork rather than staging real physical incidents.
Both cases point to the same underlying weakness: a single certifying signature can unlock immigration status if the certifying official is dishonest, or if the underlying incident is faked convincingly enough to pass review.
Sentencing and What Happens Next
None of the five men have been sentenced yet, though dates are set for several. Dixon’s sentencing is scheduled for October, while Doyle’s hearing is set for September 10 and Onishea’s for September 2. Slaney’s date has not been widely reported.
The four former officers each face up to five years in federal prison and fines of up to $250,000. Patel faces a steeper penalty. He could receive up to 20 years in prison given his money laundering charge and central role in organizing the scheme.
Patel’s forfeiture agreement gives a sense of the money involved. He agreed to give up eight bank accounts, a safe deposit box containing gold bars, coins, and jewelry, a $64,000 certificate of deposit, two vehicles, and several properties in Oakdale. Doyle separately surrendered four bank accounts, a vehicle, and the contents of his own safe deposit box. As a noncitizen, Patel also acknowledged in his plea agreement that he now faces revocation of his own immigration status and deportation.