Immigration cheats ‘using North for wedding scams’

IMMIGRATION cheats, some coming from the Republic, are using the North as the base for a money-spinning bogus marriage scam to get EU citizenship, it was claimed last night.

One man has been arrested by police on suspicion of carrying six fake wedding licences. A woman was ordered to the return to the Far East after registry office officials in Co Antrim were alerted to irregular papers as she was set to wed. One source said: “There’s big, big money in this.

“People are prepared to pay thousands to get EU citizenship and obviously they think there’s a weak link in the system.”

Concerns first emerged when a woman went to two district councils within a fortnight with applications to marry two different men. Even though only one of the ceremonies went ahead, the authorities ordered closer scrutiny of all documents. Their fears heightened in May when a wedding between a Vietnamese woman and an Irish man at Lisburn registry office was halted at the last minute.

Immigration Service and police officers were called in when it was discovered papers permitting her to stay in the Republic had expired in January 2003. She was sent back to Vietnam, while another woman from the same region was taken across the Irish Border.

Weeks later, port authorities at Stranraer in Scotland swooped on a man, believed to be an EU national, as he came off a ferry from Northern Ireland. He was held by detectives and questioned about half a dozen marriage certificates all understood to bear his name.

No details were available from police in Belfast or Dumfries and Galloway.

But a spokesman for the Northern Ireland Registrar’s Office said: “We understand the police are investigating the matter.”