Gangs paid €20m to organise fake marriages in Ireland
In a massive nationwide search, more than 200 gardaí conducted raids on homes and businesses, resulting in the arrest of nine men and two women.
This followed the arrest of 22 people since the operation, codenamed Vantage, began on August 10 last.
The 11 people arrested yesterday in 42 searches include a number of suspected facilitators organising the scam.
Gardaí said the facilitators were from other EU countries or non-EU countries.
The 42 searches included 21 in Dublin, eight in Mayo, four in Louth, three in Kildare, two each in Longford and Limerick and one each in Cork and Meath.
Some of the raids took place in legitimate businesses, where other activities are conducted alongside the suspected criminality.
The criminality involved the production of relatively sophisticated documentation — including false pay slips, tenancy agreements and utility bills — for the fraud.
Detective superintendent Stephen Courage of the Garda National Immigration Bureau, which led the multi-agency operation, said the ‘grooms’ paid the facilitators €10,000 to €20,000 up front.
The grooms were typically from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Mauritius.
He said the facilitators would arrange for women from eastern Europe and Portugal to come into the country on three occasions: to get their PPS number; to attend an interview with the marriage registrar and for the wedding ceremony.
They would then be flown in a fourth time to sign forms so that their husband can avail of EU rights, including residency and freedom to travel with the union.
Det Supt Courage said the women must show they are living and residing in Ireland for their spouse to exercise their rights.
He said that within the last year up to 1,000 people may have paid for sham marriages and that they were examining each case.
This would generate €10m to €20m in revenue for the facilitators. He said the businesses targeted involved people suspected of supplying the documentation.
Assistant commissioner Derek Byrne of the National Support Services, of which the Garda National Immigration Bureau is a part, said that there may be other business going on in the businesses targeted, including legitimate activity. He said this would all form part of the investigation, pointing out that a considerable amount of documentation and computer equipment removed from the businesses had to be examined.
He said the Civil Registration (Amendment) Act 2014 was the catalyst for the operation, as it empowered gardaí to object to suspect sham marriages.
He said its investigation had resulted in 55 objections and that a further 30 marriages did not go ahead.
“A lot of the girls recruited are from socio-economic deprived backgrounds,” said Det Supt Courage. “A lot of them would be quite vulnerable.”
He said that, depending on the circumstances, it was not their intention to prosecute them and that in many cases had assisted in their repatriation home.
He said that if they identify marriages they suspect were sham they would inform the minister of justice and recommend the husband’s treaty rights be revoked.
