ImmigrationForeign sham marriage ring broken up
Last week fourteen people were charged with conspiracy to commit marriage fraud in an attempt to secure citizenship in the United States; the plan involved paying U.S. citizens to enter into false marriages with foreigners from Eastern Europe and Russia to legalize their immigration status; the U.S. recruits were offered as much as $5,000 to participate in the scheme
Last week fourteen people were charged with conspiracy to commit marriage fraud in an attempt to secure citizenship in the United States.
The plan involved paying U.S. citizens to enter into false marriages with foreigners from Eastern Europe and Russia to legalize their immigration status. The U.S. recruits were offered as much as $5,000 to participate in the scheme.
Under immigration law, to marry an American citizen foreigners must apply for a fiancé visa before they can enter the United States and marry.
According to the affidavits, Sergey Potepalov met Keith O’Neil at a bar in Sacramento, California and signed him up to become the fake husband of an alien from Russia. From 2003 and 2005, the two men made several trips to Eastern Europe to file petitions for fiancé visas for four others, but the petitions were all denied.
The men took great pains to make the marriages appear legitimate, posing for wedding photos and rehearsing false answers for interviews with immigration officials.
Of the fourteen charged, nine were from the Sacramento area of California, while the remaining six were foreign nationals.
In 2009 investigators searched Potepalov’s home and business and found boxes of documents relating to immigration applications as well as computer files.
