The Nairobi Connection

The disclosures have prompted the UNHCR to review its resettlment programs. But it is unclear what, if anything, will change. In November the agency took out an ad in the Kenyan press urging refugees not to pay for the UNHCR's services--so far, the only public admission of the problem. For Ahmed and countless other refugees, meanwhile, the future holds little hope. His money is gone. Soon he will go back to his wife and young son in the Kakuma camp, far in the country's inhospitable north. He spoke to NEWSWEEK, he says, to help other refugees avoid the trap that snared him. "I have been dreaming for many years of telling my wife that we were leaving for America," he says. "Now I will return with my head hanging low."

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