Skip to content

Nine held over fake marriage certificates racket

Rachael Lewisin West Bromwich
News imageBBC The backs of heads of five immigration enforcement officers who are going into a house. Two are the front are men, and the rest are three women. BBC
The BBC joined enforcement officers on one raid in West Bromwich

Nine people have been arrested as part of an investigation into widespread illegal immigration through fake marriage certificates.

Dawn raids took place at homes across England earlier following intelligence about a large-scale scam in operation for at least six years.

Criminals have been exploiting the EU Settlement Scheme, which allows EU citizens residence to remain in the UK lawfully after Brexit.

It has included faking marriages between EU citizens and non-EU nationals – allowing mostly Albanian migrants to live in the UK without any legal right.

Raids took place in Doncaster, Normanton, Lincoln, Liverpool, Northamptonshire, Sheffield and the West Midlands.

Andrew Radcliffe, from the Home Office immigration investigations team said: "This abuse started in 2020, this is very sophisticated, this is very complex. So obviously that takes quite a long time to investigate and build up the intelligence."

News imageA photo of an immigration enforcement vest from behind.
The home office said criminals had been exploiting the EU Settlement Scheme

The BBC joined enforcement officers on a raid in West Bromwich where two people taken into custody.

Immigration Enforcement (IE) officers also uncovered counterfeit Cypriot marriage certificates used to deceive caseworkers that relationships were genuine.

"The people we are looking for, we suspect, have acquired their immigration status fraudulently. We believe that they submitted fraudulent documents to get status in the UK," said Radcliffe.

"This operation is a major blow to criminals who thought they could cheat the rules."

News imageA photo of a man looking seriously to the side of the camera. He is an immigration enforcement officer. He has grey hair and a black vest on.
Andrew Radcliffe said the investigations are often very complex

The EU Settlement Scheme allows EU, other European Economic Area and Swiss citizens who were residents in the UK by 31 December 2020, and their family members, to apply for pre-settled status.

After five years continued residence they can apply for settled status.

In total, 5.8 million people hold status under the scheme.

Minister for Migration and Citizenship Mike Tapp said it was "rightfully set up for our European colleagues and neighbours who had built their lives here before Brexit".

"We will not stand by while vile gangs use our schemes as a backdoor to illegal immigration and organised crime," he said.

Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.