Berlin immigration authorities have been caught up in a scam involving EU spousal visas and illegal Nigerian migrants, which has made abuse of the system possible for years.
According to a Radio Berlin investigation, a gang of smugglers would charge migrants up to €13,000 in return for a virtually guaranteed EU residency card, by posing as a married couple with a Portuguese woman the gang would supply.
One Portuguese woman who was part of the scam reportedly had seven aliases she used to pose as the wife of the newly arrived Nigerian.
According to investigators, immigration officers fell for the forged marriage certificates, despite a warning from the government not to trust documents from Nigeria.
A junior immigration official told Radio Berlin that they became suspicious at the high number of Nigerian-Portuguese ‘couples’ obtaining residency cards and alerted their superiors.
“The suspicion that something is wrong with these applications has been stated on several occasions and also forwarded to superiors, but nothing has happened.”
According to Radio Berlin’s sources, superiors were being alerted to this scam ‘several times a week’, but chose to turn a blind eye to the blatant abuse.
The gang’s ringleader, a 52-year-old Portuguese man, had previously been expelled from Britain for running a similar organised crime ring.
Investigating authorities say the Berlin gang is ‘just the tip of the iceberg’ and that the sham marriage scam is ‘widespread across Europe’.
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In 2014, Britain’s chief inspector of borders, John Vine, warned of the scam, claiming that :”The European route is becoming an increasingly important way into the UK for those whose origins lie outside the European Economic Association area, particularly now that the immigration rules have been tightened.
“If the Home Office does not act decisively to identify and tackle these abuses, many of the individuals involved may go on to obtain settlement in the UK on the basis of relationships that are not genuine.”