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JAILED, GANG WHO ARRANGED BOGUS MIGRANT MARRIAGES
The house where the scam was run from
Saturday January 19,2013
By Paul Jeeves
A FATHER-of-five who ran a sham marriage scam to sneak Pakistani men into Britain has been jailed for six years.
Working from his suburban home, Talib Hussain flew Eastern European women to Islamabad for bogus weddings with Pakistani men.
The bridegrooms could then apply to live in the UK because their wives had free European movement.
Hussain, helped by his former wife Rahina Zaman, orchestrated the very large, well-organised, professional operation from his house in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
Exploiting lax European border laws, the scam led to 62 applications for UK visas being submitted to authorities, accompanied by fake documents and photos of the bogus wedding ceremonies.
But the UK Border Agency became suspicious when it realised the same people appeared in many of the photos and the same clothes were being swapped between brides, bridegrooms and guests.
Sheffield Crown Court heard that Hussain, 42, was at the hub of a gang which flew more than 20 Czech, Slovak and British-born Asian brides to Pakistan to marry men who paid considerable sums of cash.
Yesterday 17 members of the gang were jailed for a total of 28 years, including nine of the fake brides.
Judge Rosalind Coe QC told them deterrent sentences were necessary as the scam struck at the heart of the British immigration system.
She said: Participating in sham marriages is a very serious matter.
It is an abuse of the marriage ceremony itself and an abuse of the immigration system. This was a very large, well-organised, professional operation involving very many people.
The vulnerable women, some of whom were already married, were preyed upon by the Rotherham-based gang who paid for their flights from the UK and gave them £300 each to pose as brides. One bride went through three fake marriage ceremonies in four months. Another was aged only 16 while a woman who married twice in Pakistan was pregnant on the first occasion.
They all posed for wedding photographs wearing the same clothes against the same background. Often the parties married within hours or days of meeting one another.
As overseas nationals the Pakistanis would have been granted leave to live in the UK as the spouse of an EU citizen.
The scam came to light when staff at the British High Commission in Islamabad noticed a plethora of documents were forged. None of the bogus applications were granted.
A total of 18 men and women were convicted of either conspiring to breach the UKs immigration laws or assisting unlawful immigration between August 2009 and September 2010, 17 of whom were jailed.
The trail of false documents led to the home shared by Hussain and his brother Tariq Mehmood, 27, with Talibs ex-wife Zaman, 32. Zaman was jailed for two-and-a-half years while Mehmood is on the run.
The house where the scam was run from
Saturday January 19,2013
By Paul Jeeves
A FATHER-of-five who ran a sham marriage scam to sneak Pakistani men into Britain has been jailed for six years.
Working from his suburban home, Talib Hussain flew Eastern European women to Islamabad for bogus weddings with Pakistani men.
The bridegrooms could then apply to live in the UK because their wives had free European movement.
Hussain, helped by his former wife Rahina Zaman, orchestrated the very large, well-organised, professional operation from his house in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
Exploiting lax European border laws, the scam led to 62 applications for UK visas being submitted to authorities, accompanied by fake documents and photos of the bogus wedding ceremonies.
But the UK Border Agency became suspicious when it realised the same people appeared in many of the photos and the same clothes were being swapped between brides, bridegrooms and guests.
Sheffield Crown Court heard that Hussain, 42, was at the hub of a gang which flew more than 20 Czech, Slovak and British-born Asian brides to Pakistan to marry men who paid considerable sums of cash.
Yesterday 17 members of the gang were jailed for a total of 28 years, including nine of the fake brides.
Judge Rosalind Coe QC told them deterrent sentences were necessary as the scam struck at the heart of the British immigration system.
She said: Participating in sham marriages is a very serious matter.
It is an abuse of the marriage ceremony itself and an abuse of the immigration system. This was a very large, well-organised, professional operation involving very many people.
The vulnerable women, some of whom were already married, were preyed upon by the Rotherham-based gang who paid for their flights from the UK and gave them £300 each to pose as brides. One bride went through three fake marriage ceremonies in four months. Another was aged only 16 while a woman who married twice in Pakistan was pregnant on the first occasion.
They all posed for wedding photographs wearing the same clothes against the same background. Often the parties married within hours or days of meeting one another.
As overseas nationals the Pakistanis would have been granted leave to live in the UK as the spouse of an EU citizen.
The scam came to light when staff at the British High Commission in Islamabad noticed a plethora of documents were forged. None of the bogus applications were granted.
A total of 18 men and women were convicted of either conspiring to breach the UKs immigration laws or assisting unlawful immigration between August 2009 and September 2010, 17 of whom were jailed.
The trail of false documents led to the home shared by Hussain and his brother Tariq Mehmood, 27, with Talibs ex-wife Zaman, 32. Zaman was jailed for two-and-a-half years while Mehmood is on the run.
