By IANS,
London : A Czech woman and her Slovak boyfriend were paid up to 300 pounds to fly to Pakistan and “marry” Pakistani men and women to help them get visas to enter Britain, a court heard.
Eva Holubova, 19, flew to Pakistan with her boyfriend, also 19, to take part in fake marriage ceremonies and was “married” three times in four months, the Daily Mail reported.
She told British police Pakistani men offered her 250 pounds for photos to pretend they were married so that they could get visas to go to Britain.
Her boyfriend Peter Pohodko, from Slovakia, also took part in the scam and was paid 300 pounds for “marrying” a 28-year-old Pakistani woman.
Holubova was among 20 Czech or Slovak woman flown to Pakistan by a sham marriage gang based in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.
The main organisers were brothers Talib Hussain, 41, and Tariq Mehmood, 27, along with Talib’s ex-wife Rahina Zaman, 32. Mehmood is on the run.
The gang set up fake weddings to dupe immigration services into letting Pakistani men enter Britain.
One woman returned to Britain with 1,000 pounds in cash while another who had a fake marriage already had a husband in the country.
As overseas nationals, the Pakistanis would have been granted leave to live in Britain as “husbands” of their spouses who as citizens of the European Union had the right to live and work in the country.
The scam was discovered by the British High Commission in Islamabad.
The “Operation Razorback” led to 18 men and women being convicted for breaching immigration laws between August 2009 and September 2010.