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SHAM MARRIAGES ARE widespread in Ireland, with hundreds of non-EU, mainly Asian men paying to marry vulnerable eastern European women to secure EU residency, according to a report.
Many of the women involved have been trafficked to Ireland, the Immigrant Council of Ireland (ICI) study found.
Last November, Gardaí arrested 11 members of an international gang based in Dublin after an operation last November targeting gangs profiting from sham marriages.
The gang charged men from Asian countries, including Pakistan, India and Mauritius, between €10,000 and €20,000 each to marry women from eastern Europe and Portugal.
The landmark report, compiled over two years, concludes sham marriages are an emerging form of exploitation of female victims by organised criminal groups in Ireland.
It documented hundreds of cases where women travelled from Latvia to Ireland and soon after married men from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
“At present, those exploited in sham marriage situations are not defined as victims of human trafficking,” said Brian Killoran, chief executive of the ICI.
“However, this research project came about because service-providers and consular services were noticing increased instances of vulnerable women being exploited, abused and trapped with deception in marriages involving EU and non-EU nationals.
In many such incidents, there were strong indicators of trafficking.
These include a highly organised system of targeting, recruiting and exploiting vulnerable young women. There is also evidence of deception and control; movement across borders; appalling experiences of physical and psychological abuse; and incidents of rape, sexual abuse and enforced domestic servitude.
Over 100
Nusha Yonkova, anti-trafficking manager with the Immigrant Council, told TheJournal.ie that the victims were typically vulnerable girls with little English, many hialing from extremely impoverished eastern European backgrounds.
The report found, in all cases examined, the female victims had a connection with their recruiter, who was a family member, friend or friend of the family in the origin country.
The numbers of sham marriages rose in the period covered by the report. In 2014, 101 sham marriages took place, 90 in 2013 and 87 in 2012.
In 2009, there were 357 such marriages involving Latvian women in Ireland, according to the report. The Latvian embassy has expressed concern.
The report said the system for identifying if women were trafficked was “flawed”.
Operation Vantage
A year ago, the Garda National Immigration Bureau launched Operation Vantage to investigate illegal immigration, and identify “sham marriages” – that is, a marriage involving foreign national that is solely for the purpose of securing safe immigration.
To date, gardaí have arrested 63 people who have either been prosecuted, are before the courts or have been removed from the State. Gardaí estimate sham marriages have been reduced by 75% by Operation Vantage.
Last year, the total number of asylum applications more than doubled compared to 2014, up by 127%, according to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner.
Gardaí say they saw a spike in lost passports from certain nationalities in the first seven months of last year – 714 from persons of Pakistani nationality alone compared to 236 for the entire year 2014.
Applications for EU Treaty Rights and residency also nearly doubled in 2015, from 3,230 applications in 2014 to 5,996 in 2015. Again, this was mainly down to a large increase from certain Asian countries, Gardaí said.
Applications from Pakistani nationals increased from 683 applicants in 2014 to 1,920 in 2015. Applications from Afghani nationals increased from 68 applicants in 2014 to 881 applicants in 2015.
In the first seven months of last year, a total of 784 marriages took place between non-Irish EU nationals, and non-EU nationals.
Over a third (36%) involved Pakistani nationals, followed by Indian nationals at 12% and Bangladeshi nationals at 8%.
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This is going on for years. Every once in a while it makes headlines. Why the authorities don’t clamp down is a mystery. A sham marriage would not be hard to spot. A rudimentary interview would confirm any suspicions and no license should be issued. Why is it even an issue. And why is it on going agai st all common sense and the law.
@Margie Murph: “es. Why the authorities don’t clamp down is a mystery.”
You didn’t read the article, did you. Marg? You missed the bit where the Garda operation is estimated to have reduced the occurrence of these marriages by three quarters.
“A year ago, the Garda National Immigration Bureau launched Operation Vantage to investigate illegal immigration, and identify “sham marriages” – that is, a marriage involving foreign national that is solely for the purpose of securing safe immigration.
To date, gardaí have arrested 63 people who have either been prosecuted, are before the courts or have been removed from the State. Gardaí estimate sham marriages have been reduced by 75% by Operation Vantage.”
Also your clearly expressed heartfelt concern for the girls trafficked from eastern Europe is touching.
” There is also evidence of deception and control; movement across borders; appalling experiences of physical and psychological abuse; and incidents of rape, sexual abuse and enforced domestic servitude.”
What a wonderful empathetic human being you are.
@Phil Blanc: jeez Phil. Your attention seeking is becoming psychotic .
@Margie Murph: Pointing out that you clearly didn’t read the article you commented on isn’t attention seeking. It is simply, and yet again, highlighting that you are an ill-informed mouthpiece who doesn’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
You asked “Why the authorities don’t clamp down is a mystery.” when the article clearly states that they have clamped down on it and done it very effectively. You didn’t read the article before mouthing off.
That fact that you couldn’t address this glaring error on your part, except to respond with childish nonsense like this, shows exactly the kind of person you are.
Oh Phil stop being so alarmist and hysterical. Sham marriages are widespread, thousands have been conducted in this jurisdiction in the last 10 years but TO DATE 63 people have been fingered. No one is in jail, they’re before the courts or left the jurisdiction. And you call that a success. Your standards are low Phil but 63 people out of thousands is abysmal.
Jesus, it looks like you have an admirer there Marge.
Phil, that operation is designed to uncover sham marriages whereas an interview process for marriage licensing involving non EU participants should prevent most of the sham arrangements in the first place. Common sense.
@Phil Blanc: Still sniffin the glue…………..
@Phil Blanc
It’s a bit scary the way you stock people here like Margie. In fairness your quote calling her “an uninformed mouthpiece” you might want to look in the mirror at yourself to validate that claim.
@Greg Blake: iIf common sense was a precept by which this country was governed it would be a great little country. Unfortunately we have a preponderance of befuddled thinkers, like Phil here, who like to do things the long and expensive way (to the taxpayer) and then when there is a minuscule, modicum of success, 63 people out of thousands, they like to whoop from the rafters. An interview would not suit the likes of the SJW. The scammers have rights like! And human dignity, and just like the asylum seekers before them, they must be believed or you’re a racist without a heart or a soul.
@deirdre: That’s nothing. Only yesterday, I quote, “oh shut up! you poisonous, anti intellectual Bigot!” That’s just a sampler of Phil’s gifts of intellectual persuasion.
@Margie Murph:
He did something similar to me as well some time back. He loves to label people with his usual “bigot” or “racist” insults if they contradict with his odd perception of the world. But enough of Phil.
In the US they put couples through a interview process to determine legitimacy. Another Irish friend of mine was marrying an American girl (they have 3 children now). He said they really test you and he had no issue with the process.
The Irish are incredibly naive of immigration. Immigration into Ireland being such a new concept. The Garda just don’t have the capabilities and resources to address this issue and many others in regards to illegal immigration. This needs to be remedied sooner rather than later. Honestly I think it is one of the biggest issues facing the country at the moment.
@Deirdre Nic Thuachair: Yes, I know the drill in America. A seasoned INS interviewer would have a scam marriage couple sorted in seconds. They don’t mess around there like they do here. Here they pussyfoot around for fear of offence. There should be interviews . The problem wouldn’t be a problem if it were approached properly in advance of the “marriage”.
@Phil Blanc: Perhaps you could read the article again, 63 have been arrested and then it just becomes “numbers” 1 and 2 are numbers you know. As for The IMI they and similar parasitic quangos should have their funding removed post haste, they haven’t got a good word to say about the country that funds them to take care of immigrants. Again on why you should reas the article again Phil then you might notice the piece that says “The report found, in all cases examined, the female victims had a connection with their recruiter, who was a family member, friend or friend of the family in the origin country.” which obviously means that these shams are being carried out by immigrants but The IMI wants to blame Ireland for it, wants us to look after and give shelter to people who came here with the express interest of selling off parts of our welfare system. The system that our pensioners paid into to be looked after when they retired and which handed them € 5 a week only yesterday.
Immigrant Council of Ireland trying to justify their existence…………MUCH.
I thought using their offices for the PR of the Clonskeagh whining sisters was enough.
@Margie Murph: “Oh Phil stop being so alarmist and hysterical. ”
There’s nothing alarmist or hysterical about pointing out that you clearly didn’t read the article you’re commenting on
“Sham marriages are widespread, thousands have been conducted in this jurisdiction in the last 10 years but TO DATE 63 people have been fingered.”
According to the article “in 2014, 101 sham marriages took place, 90 in 2013 and 87 in 2012.” Taking an average of those three years (and ignoring the fact that the trend is for decreasing numbers of such marriages as the years go back) we’d have 926 over ten years, not thousands. Maths, like facts and comprehension, clearly aren’t your strong point.
” No one is in jail, they’re before the courts or left the jurisdiction. And you call that a success. Your standards are low Phil but 63 people out of thousands is abysmal.”
And now the Gardaí are taking successful action. So, in spite of all your bluster, when you asked “Why the authorities don’t clamp down is a mystery” you were ill-informed as they ARE clamping down as the article states and as you woudl have known if you’d taken the time to read it before mouthing off.
The issue is much bigger and more complex than your small little racist mind can comprehend. The legislation to undertake Operation Vantage was only enacted in late 2014. The legislation to allow marriage registrars to question the authenticity of marriages before them was only enacted about a year ago too. As a result of that 55 formal objections were made through Operation Vantage and 22 people have been arrested and charged and 30 marriages between EU/non-EU nationals didn’t proceed following Garda enquiries. Vantage also saw the arrest of 2 convicted non-EU national sex offenders – something people like you wail about never happening.
Whether you like it or not but due process applies to anyone charged under Irish law and due process, by it’s very nature needs to be carried out to the full extent so the process takes time. Even more so when it involves cross-party involvement from the CAB, Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation, and local Gardí, INIS, DSFA, Revenue, ODCE, the WRC and Europol.
Also, unlike you and your hate-filled xenophobic nut-jobs, the Gardaí recognise and investigate the exploitation of women for the purposes of sham marriages. Thankful you lot are a small best of bigots concentrated here and on the real world are a fringe minority people generally avoid having anything to do with.
@john Clark. The sisters! Ah! I’ve been triggered!
@Phil Blanc: I’ll let you have the last 10,000 words Phil.
@Margie Murph: See, a nonsense reply. Too complex for your tiny little mind to contemplate. You’d rather buzz words from the daily mail, wouldn’t you, Marg?
And you rail against being called an anti-intellectual. Your ignorance is staggering.
@Margie Murph: “Yes, I know the drill in America. A seasoned INS interviewer would have a scam marriage couple sorted in seconds. They don’t mess around there like they do here. Here they pussyfoot around for fear of offence. There should be interviews . The problem wouldn’t be a problem if it were approached properly in advance of the “marriage”.”
The Civil Registration (Amendment) Act 2014 allows a a Registrar of Marriages to question a marriage before them and refer it to the Gardai. You’d know that if you read my response to you rather than jackassing about with childish nonsense. But you don’t like learning new things when your prejudices have dictated something else to be a “fact”, do you, Marg?
@Phil Blanc:
Philly you’ve ventured off the reservation now. There’s no hope for you! Are you feeling a wee bit triggered!? Ah the writings of a mad man lol
Ease up sometimes (in your case the vast majority of the time) people will have different opinion than you.
@Deirdre Nic Thuachair: Yet another reply which has nothing to do with what was actually discussed.
“Ease up sometimes (in your case the vast majority of the time) people will have different opinion than you.”
Marg and people like Marg, given your contributions here I assume you to be one of them, don’t have opinions – you have biased reinforced by ignorance and insurmountable by any amount of facts.
And no, in the vast majority of the time normal people agree with me, the journal’s comments section is not at all representative of the real worlds. It is a viper’s nest of ignorance and right-wing rhetoric.
Phil Blanc: have you been “offended”? Someone must have used a trigger word, now be a good boy and fcuk off back into your safe space ye clown
@Ian O Connell: Maybe you could try and exercise your brain a little bit, god knows it could do with it, and give us a comment which actually has something to do with the article. Extra points for using things like truth and facts.
Even your nonsense comment doesn’t make any sense, but since you’re nothing but an ignorant loud mouth too that is hardly surprising to anyone. But you got a few green thumbs form some fellow ignorant haters so well done you. Day made, eah?
@Margie Murph:
Nationalists have been pointing this out for years only to be shouted down as being racist.
Everything nationalists have warned about regarding mass-immigration and its detrimental effects both here and abroad have come true and are coming true. You can either listen to the open-border extremists who serve the super-rich globalists policies or you can listen to nationalists whose policies protect the Irish and their native home, Ireland.
Btw once you have a strong home, you are better able to help other people of other nations in or near their own homes, in a sustainable way. Mass-immigration eventually kills the goose that lays the golden egg, and foreign aid eventually will end.
“Vulnerable eastern European women” it had to be the immigrant council when you read something like that. Basically its Pakistani men paying upto €10,000 to polish women (EU nationals) to marry to acquire an irish passport. The reason the immigrant wont say it but guess what they should be prosecuted and deported. Hopefully a change in justice minister soon to rid ourselves of these costly unacceptable religious quangos such as the immigrant council, the migrant council, ruhamna and doras luimni.
@Trevor Beacom: True. The immigrants council spin on the issue is laughable. The “vulnerable” female is “trafficked”. How patronising that the female is always vulnerable and trafficked and the Immigrant Council and their apparatchiks are always there to save the day and justify their funding. These quangos are insidious. The Irish taxpayer is lowest on their totem pole, just a cash cow for them to,exploit while they pursue their open borders agenda.
@Margie Murph: I’d imagine the eastern European woman gets only a all proportion of what’s paid. This is highly controlled by criminals
Id like to agree Anne marie but we have no evidence of this. As you say you “imagine” this and then state that its controlled by criminals. But we need proof. I know two polish girls here in limerick who have married Pakistani men. Both seperated after just over a year. One continued to live with her polish boyfriend all through the marriage.
@Trevor Beacom: I agree, Trevor. All kinds of arrangements come into play. One particular example that I remember well happened in the 1980s, when it was almost impossible for Soviet citizens to leave the country.
A Finnish couple that I knew befriended two Estonians, who desperately wanted to live in freedom, but at that time it looked like it would never happen.
The Finnish couple divorced, began making more visits to Estonia and began “courtships” with their two friends. It took time and a lot of paperisota (paper war = red tape) before two marriages could take place in Tallinn. Then more red tape and rigmarole until both spouses were allowed to go to Finland, where in due course there were two divorces and one more (re)wedding.
The Finnish couple financed the whole thing themselves, purely out of principle, and their “only” reward was the lifetime gratitude of two people that they did a favour for,
Is there anything we can’t screw up in this country?
Everybody from German banks, multinational companies, international hedge funds right down to Asian men seeking sham marriages really milk our country and our innocence.
How exactly are the Eastern European women “exploited” here? There’s nothing “vulnerable” about them.
They know exactly what they’re doing. They’re doing it for the cash. Arrest them too.
@Fred Johnson: You didn’t read the article either, did you? Seems to be a theme with the angry anti-foreigner mob on here.
“These include a highly organised system of targeting, recruiting and exploiting vulnerable young women. There is also evidence of deception and control; movement across borders; appalling experiences of physical and psychological abuse; and incidents of rape, sexual abuse and enforced domestic servitude.”
“Nusha Yonkova, anti-trafficking manager with the Immigrant Council, told TheJournal.ie that the victims were typically vulnerable girls with little English, many hialing from extremely impoverished eastern European backgrounds.”
@Phil Blanc: You’d believe anything.
@Phil Blanc: “Phil”, the great debater.
I know of a women who was from Portugal with a sick child. I would imagine she would need money for treatment and the welfare of the child. she is vulnerable and she does not have to be from eastern Europe
@Eamon Mac Gowan: What debate is there to have with you?
I pointed out the article describes some of the types of exploitation and all you came back with was “You’d believe anything”.
@Margie Murph: That’s great LOL, I wish I’d thought of that.
@Eamon Mac Gowan: haha Eamon. You can have it with my permission as long as you reserve it for Phil only.
How much does the ‘Immigrant Council’ cost the taxpayers each year ?
@Peter Buchanan: It’s not funded by the Government.
@Peter Buchanan: Good question. The Immigrant Council are more of a ‘Sham’ than any of their clientele. Paid to demand absolute adherence to their migrant dogma, while covering up for the mullahs who continue to invade the country, and use every possible pretext to do so.
@Patricia McCarthy: ” Good question.”
No really. They’re not funded by the government.
Where does their money come from?
@Peter Buchanan:
Comes from globalist billionaires like George Feeney of Atlantic Philanthropies ( = code for destroying European ethnicities)
George Soros is another globalist who funds any organisation that wrecks European nations and the European worker or middle class, and which the so-called defenders of the poor/workers, the Open-Border Extremists are willing lackeys of.
It’s true – I always see really fat minging Irish birds walking around with Nigerians.
why is phil telling everyone who read the article they actually didn’t?
@Lukey: because Phil is very intelligent, everybody else is anti intellectual and Phil has FACTS!
@Margie Murph: Says the moron who asked ” Why the authorities don’t clamp down is a mystery” when the article clearly explains that they are clamping down on it.
Cough Culture cough..sorry something in my throat there.
My wife is a sham
We should respect their vibrant cultures though.
Sham marriages are not uncommon in the world. Another major category is Russians marrying EU citizens (mainly from Finland and the Baltic States) to get into the Schengen Area. Far from all of the women involved are naive or vulnerable, because for many it is just an easy way to make a tidy sum of money.
The report comes as an absolute shock to me, absolutely shocking. I knew it happened in the rest of Europe but I never thought it would happen here.
The only sham marriages we ever had was in Tuam, Co Galway.
Did anyone ever look into sham gay civil partnership or marriage? They should …
@Maciek Sz: Contact the Iona “institute” and maybe they’ll put some genius reporter like John Waters to work investigating it — LOL
@Maciek Sz:
Seeing as Civil Partnerships for same sex couples became legal in July 2010 with a significantly lower number of them occurring than marriages in that time and that since November 2015 “marriage” refers to same sex and opposite sex couples it is possible that some of those mentioned above have been “looked into”.
But I suspect that wasn’t your concern…
Particularly noticeable in border areas pre full Brexit as Pakistanis previously legal in the north and British mainland through sham marriages flee their soon to be non Eu habitat and descend en masse south of the border!
@Meeto29: Scaremongering nonsense! Why should Pakistanis who are legal in the UK, and many of whom have good incomes there, have bought homes and whose children are at school, want to go to another country after Brexit?
Or are you suggesting that the UK is going to start uprooting and deporting non-nationals who have been legally resident for years just to please the more swivel-eyed loons in UKIP?
Not acceptable. Whp is performing these marriages? Somebody is and it should be there responsibility to report it
@Karen Doyle:
It it, now. The Civil Registration (Amendment) Act 2014 gives powers to Marriage Registrars to consider whether a marriage is one of convenience and to refer to the Gardaí if appropriate.
I don’t see any reference to a €20 million figure in the report. In fact the report says “At this time there are no completed prosecutions in Ireland, and therefore limited information is available in relation to the financial transactions.”
This wouldn’t be another case of journalists uncritically reporting as fact a bogey stat made up by an NGO on the hoof, would it?
A PC taliban dictates that anyone who decides to land on our shores is GOOD RIGHT AND UNTOUCHABLE . Question one of them and you are branded racist. We are being taken for mugs.
so the women are also victims? I believe they are paid for their involvement in the scam
Whats worst is sham kids, where I use to work there was so many lovely kids that had no fathers the mother for what reason had the kid / s . What is annoying the genuine people are all ways given the no’s or run about.
Protecting criminal fraudsters like those women by alleging they are vulnerable is only going to increase the occurrence of this crime. We shouldn’t treat drug smugglers mules as vulnerable innocents, why treat woman who are people smugglers as so..
Oh dont forget the latinos marrying their eu bf to stay longer :-)
@lee: ah hayor mistor us gingers need love too ye know
@lee: For that matter, look at all the women who marry Americans just to get green cards. I’ve even heard that some guys go through the charade in return for a few BJs. Others, two so far, will be desperate enough to marry a narcissistic, self-confessed groper, who claims to be a billionaire and wants to have the most powerful job in the world — LOL
Mauritius is in Asia now?
@Peter: It is an island in the Indian Ocean and most of its inhabitants are of Indian ethnic origin.
So if more Asians came to Ireland, we’d be in Asia, too? I must inform my other half that they’re now Asians. Lol.
Looking at the divorce rate. Most marriages are sham
It is an utterly damning indictment of the cesspit the comments section on this site has become when you see the majority of the comments expressing contempt for vulnerable people, bullying any (of the remaining few who will still bother to engage) who hold an opinion counter to the right-wing xenophobic majority and attack the work of some incredibly dedicated and well meaning individuals who have done more good in their lives that the lot of the rabble here combined.
I find it particularly galling that the work of one of Ireland’s most exemplary citizens, Sister Stan, can be torn apart here, branding a money grabbing NGO, suggesting they waste taxpayer’s money (they don’t, as they aren’t funded by the government) and accused of lying about their research. No decent person will bother to wade in her for fear of being set upon by the xenophobic hatemongers and abused without sanction throughout the site. By allowing this situation to materalise Journal.ie have done themselves and in this case the ICI a huge disservice. They ought to be ashamed.
@Phil Blanc: Try to look at it in a positive light, Phil. Isn’t it fun winding up those nutters, who have simple solutions to the most complex of questions, have no understanding of law, fail to come to terms with the fact that we are now irreversibly living in a globalised world and believe that every human right granted someone else is taken away from them, have poor or no education and often are just trying to wind you and me up?
Just worry about what they would do if they ever had significant power. But they never will. LOL
@fintan. It’s funny you mention “winding up”. The only person who gets wound up is Phil. To the point of apoplexy. I find him great craic. You only have to nudge him a little bit and he’s off!!!
@Fintan Oflaois: “Just worry about what they would do if they ever had significant power. But they never will. LOL”
Look what the uneducated small minded xenophobes did to the UK with the Brexit vote. Look what they did to France allowing the Front national to grow. Look what happened in Finland etc… all down to the “post-fact” the Daily Mail types.
But that’s not the point. Any reasonable person has long since abandoned the comments section here, a few remain but even then. I had to hide by account as having used my real facebook to comment here I ended up getting abusive messages from racist following me from here. Journal did nothing about that.
The likes of Marg and co are ardent anti-intellectuals, fervent racists unwilling to accept any truths other than what they want to believe to the point of ridicule of anyone who contradicts them – take a look at her paranoid lunacy way back in April, my first unfortunate interaction with her, where I was accused of being ” a paid shill” and slagged off because I knew what I was talking about!
http://www.thejournal.ie/profile/390753/phil-blanc-whoever-4991226/
The journal in their inaction, and by allowing continued abuse, encourage this behavior and dissuade anyone who actually does know what they are talking about from engaging for fear of being swamped in abuse, paranoid accusations off-site stalking and being swarmed with red thumbs for like-minded morons. They have damaged the site irreparably and seem unwilling or uninterested in addressing it so much so to the point where people are highlighting the level of hate found here.
@Margie Murph: You’re nothing but an uneducated loudmouth who is immensely proud of your ignorance. You never deal with facts and when they are presented to you you just respond with personally abusive nonsense like “Well I think you should get that head of yours checked out. There’s medications for likes of you today. I think they’re called anti psychotics.”
You’re an empty vessel, nothing more. You and and people like you have ruined this site.
I don’t believe it!!!!
i know this its been going on for years mostly pakistani guys do it, and they dont mind leftovers they would bleeding take horse if it had a passport. i know the score you buy a girl for €20,000 she stays with you no matter good or bad times and you marry her Just for a Passport. some of the girls are look like sheep.
Pakistani people do sham marriages for Passports thats 100% correct
but pakistani people dont sit at home and get paid for it they work like donkeys to get paid there not like those nigerian scammers
have your say