A sham bride swapped a life-long commitment for a spell behind bars.
Portuguese national Raquel Neto Furtado De Andrade, 22, who has been married three times before, attempted to enter into a sham marriage at Harrow Registar Office in October last year.
Moments later she was arrested following a Home Office investigation.
Her would-be ‘groom’, a 32-year-old Nigerian national, was also arrested as an immigration offender after he was found to have overstayed his visa. He was removed from the UK on October 9 last year.
The Home Office Immigration Enforcement was called in after register office staff raised suspicions about the couple.
Investigations showed that De Andrade had been married three times previously but none of these relationships had been dissolved. She was subsequently charged with two counts of bigamy, two counts of facilitation and one count of perjury.
She pleaded guilty to the charges and sentenced to two years imprisonment for each offence to be served concurrently at Harrow Crown Court on Tuesday, March 4.
Head of the West London Home Office Immigration Enforcement team, Sarah Burton said: “This was a cynical attempt to by-pass immigration controls. De Andrade thought her plot would go unnoticed but our officers were one step ahead of the game and stopped the ‘couple’ in their tracks.
“We are working closely with registrars across London and the UK to clamp down on sham weddings and civil partnerships. These convictions are examples of the success that we are having. Where there are suspicions that a relationship may not be genuine we will investigate and, if necessary, intervene to stop it happening.”
Leader of Harrow Council, Councillor Susan Hall (Conservative) said: “We are working closely with the Home Office to tackle this issue, and our registrars are trained to spot and report marriages that may not be genuine. This serves as a clear warning that a jail term could await those who try and abuse the system.”
A sham marriage or civil partnership typically occurs when a non-European national marries someone from the European Economic Area as a means of attempting to gain long-term residency and the right to work and claim benefits in the UK.
Anyone with information about suspected immigration abuse can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 anonymously or visit http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org.
