Eleven people have been charged with conducting over 1,000 fake marriages and submitting countless fraudulent green card applications to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to illegally obtain immigration status for foreign nationals.
The marriages were primarily with citizens of the People’s Republic of China and have been occurring since at least 2016, with some paying facilitators up to $100,000 for the marriage, per the U.S. Department of Justice.
The fraudulent marriage network allegedly made millions of dollars.
Citizens who were willing to participate in the sham marriage could be compensated up to $30,000, and marriage recruiters received commissions of up to $5,000 for each person recruited.
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the illegal operation is one of the largest marriage scam prosecutions in American history. He said in a press conference on Wednesday that the people responsible were naturalized U.S. citizens originally from China and one green card holder.
“These facilitators employed attorneys, tax preparers, and marriage officiants. Some of the other charged defendants acted as recruiters by finding and recruiting United States citizens to participate in the scheme, and other defendants acted as officiants, officiating dozens of these alleged fake marriages,” Blanche said.
He continued, “Often after these phony ceremonies, defendants would stage images of families at restaurants to create the appearance of a legitimate wedding, and some of the defendants also facilitated sham marriages overseas in China.”
Though the network was primarily run out of New York, fake marriages were allegedly held in multiple Eastern states and overseas.
“Through this process, the defendants made enormous sums of money for themselves. We believe this network took in tens of millions of dollars over its decade-long operation,” Jamie McDonald, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said during Wednesday’s press conference.
“The way that this case developed was really truly remarkable,” he added. “It began with a single communication that our office uncovered in an entirely unrelated case. Our prosecutors identified that communication, thought that it could be tied to a potential marriage and immigration fraud scheme. They moved quickly. They obtained warrant after warrant and followed the facts where they led.”
The defendants could face up to 15 years in jail if found guilty.