Former Forest Hill police chief Glynn Dixon is the latest to fall in a long running immigration fraud case, admitting Tuesday that he played a role in what federal authorities describe as a decade long scheme. His guilty plea rounds out a roster of five defendants, including an Oakdale businessman and several other law enforcement officials, who prosecutors say cranked out dozens and possibly hundreds of bogus "armed robbery" reports to prop up U visa applications for noncitizens.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana, Dixon, 62, entered his plea on June 30, 2026, joining Chandrakant Patel, Chad Doyle, Michael Slaney and Tebo Onishea, who had already admitted guilt in recent weeks. In the statement, U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Keller called the conduct "disgraceful fraud" that endangered the community and eroded trust in the immigration system, all, he said, so the defendants could line their own pockets.
Prosecutors say the scheme ran from December 2015 through July 2025 and relied on a steady pattern of fabricated armed robbery reports, a pattern laid out in court filings and detailed by the Associated Press. Investigators told reporters that Patel collected thousands of dollars from people hoping for immigration relief, then paid about 5,000 dollars per fabricated name to officers who helped create the fake paperwork. The indictment also stacks on mail fraud and money laundering charges tied to the same operation.
Homeland Security investigators told a local station that roughly 300 direct petitioners walked away with U visas and more than 650 applications were filed in connection with the scheme, a tally reported by KALB. Court documents and plea agreements show Patel agreed to give up multiple properties in Oakdale, funds from several bank accounts, and the contents of a safe deposit box that held about a pound of gold and dozens of jewelry items. Sentencing hearings for Patel and several co defendants are scheduled for September at the federal courthouse in Alexandria.
Legal Fallout And Deportation Risk
The indictment also notes that Patel himself received a U visa in 2023, an allegation that first surfaced in local coverage and that his courtroom admissions now put squarely on the record. That plea opens the door to removal proceedings, according to KATC. Court filings and international reporting state that the plea agreement labels the offenses as deportable crimes, which makes revocation of immigration benefits likely after sentencing, per Times of India. Prosecutors have said they are still sorting out how far the fraud reached and whether any visa recipients will face their own charges, according to the Associated Press.
How Investigators Say The Scheme Worked
Prosecutors say Patel recruited clients who were looking for immigration relief, took their money, then worked with his law enforcement co conspirators to cook up and certify false incident reports and I 918B certifications that U visa adjudicators rely on, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana. Investigators say the defendants also mailed those falsified documents as part of the applications, which brought federal mail fraud charges on top of the visa fraud counts.
Why This Matters
Federal watchdogs have been warning for years that the U visa program is a tempting target for scammers. A 2022 review by the GAO found that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had no formal antifraud strategy for the program and inconsistent fraud detection staffing. The report urged stronger fraud risk assessments and a clearer antifraud game plan for the agency’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate.
What Comes Next
The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation as part of a homeland security task force. Local outlets report that the probe unfolded under a Department of Justice initiative prosecutors dubbed "Operation Take Back America." As for the fallout, WBRZ reports that prosecutors plan to push for prison terms and asset forfeiture that match the size of the scheme when the defendants return to federal court later this year.
