An ‘unreported number’ of Portuguese women have been rounded up by police in Britain, suspected of having taken part in illegal marriages with Pakistani men in and around Manchester.
In a low-key side story last week, Correio da Manhã said the police operation arrested a total of 13 people – “among them Portuguese brides, Pakistani grooms and intermediaries in the business”.
The marriages are all reported to have taken place between January and June of 2013, at a registry office in Blackburn.
Police had suspected the marriages “were not genuine”, reports CM, but “realised instead with the objective of allowing the Pakistanis to reside legally in the UK”.
The arrests follow a huge exposé on illegal marriages covered by the Daily Mail last year. At the time, one of the country’s “top registrars” told reporters that up to 20% of marriages in the UK were “shams”, designed to give illegal immigrants the documentation they required to stay in Europe.
Last year also, 54-year-old Portuguese Maria Loureiro was sentenced to 45-months in jail for operating an illegal marriage scam involving Portuguese women and Indian grooms.
