Nine held over fake marriage certificates racket

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." 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 f