Four Nigerians Jailed In UK For Involvement In Fake Marriages
Adetokunbo Fakeye with agency report
Four fake brides and an ex-security guard arranger have been jailed in the UK for engaging in an eight-month marriage scam, reports Channels TV.
Azuha Izegbune, 38, a former security guard from Birmingham, West Midlands, was paid to arrange fake weddings between Hungarian and Nigerian nationals so they could remain in the UK.
The fake weddings staged at registry offices in Birmingham, Stoke and Glasgow weddings, were arranged so that both brides and grooms could secure European Area Residence Cards.
Some of the grooms were flown in to the UK just hours before the fake ceremonies took place.
The scam was exposed following a Home Office investigation and those involved have been sentenced to a total of nine years in jail at Birmingham Crown Court.
Pronouncing the sentence, Judge Elizabeth Stacey said Izegbune had undermined the UK’s border controls.
She described him as ‘the lynch-pin, the organiser and the fixer’ of an eight-month conspiracy between December 2012 and September 2013.
She said: ‘You met registrars, bought plane tickets, acted as witness and interpreter and recruited Ivett Szanto to help you find Hungarian grooms and brides.
“I have read the wonderful testimonies about you. It’s just desperately sad that you have used your considerable charm and skills to take part in these activities.”
Izegbune who has lived legally in the UK since 2009, and has dual Nigerian and Hungarian nationality, was jailed for 31 months after pleading guilty to five counts of conspiracy to facilitate a breach of UK immigration law.
Meanwhile, Hungarian national Ivett Szanto, 31, admitted taking part in one fake marriage with a Nigerian man who was also seeking a visa. She had also conspired with Izegbune to help set up two further marriages with men she knew from her native Budapest.
Judge Stacey sentenced her to 20 months, saying: “Your role in this was much more peripheral. You were a small cog in the wheel”.
The court heard the fake brides handed over an unknown amount of cash in a bid to win the residence cards – which would have given them the legal right to remain in the UK and Europe.
One of the fake brides, pregnant Nigerian Hellen Adejumo-Dani, 31, who is due to give birth in October, was found guilty after a separate two-day trial in March of this year and was jailed for 22 months.
The other two, Nwabunwanne Eze, 35, and Chioma Nwangwu, 28, both from Birmingham, were both jailed for taking part in their own fake marriages.
Nwangu married her “groom” at the Birmingham registry office in June 2013, while Eze attempted to marry at the Glasgow registry office in August 2013 – but the ceremony was raided by investigators.
They pleaded guilty to one charge of breaching immigration law and were jailed for 16 months and 17 months respectively.
The court heard that four members of Eze had studied Health and Social Care at South Birmingham College after arriving legitimately on a student visa in 2010.
She exhausted all the appeals to stay in the country and took part in the sham marriage just before she would have been forced to leave the country. She has since lodged an application seeking asylum.
Nwangwu worked in a bank in Nigeria before arriving in Birmingham to study at Birmingham City University in 2011.
She returned home, but came back on a six-month visitor visa and wanted to stay in the UK after that expired to be with her genuine partner – a Nigerian who resides legally in the country.