As a result of the official passport fraud scandal in the DR, Italy has again begun to require visas on official and diplomatic passports from this country. The information was provided by Italian Ambassador, Giorgio Sfara, during an interview with Diario Libre. He said the measure became effective on 20 September 2005. The diplomat stated they could not control traffic because the false council members would enter Italy without a visa, but when someone pointed out that there were 40 or 50 arriving on each flight, they became suspicious and shortly after that the scandal was revealed. Sfara does not have the official number of impostors who entered Italy as council members or their wives, but they may have been one or two hundred.