A married couple earned more than £500,000 by arranging sham marriages to trick the Home Office into letting desperate Pakistani immigrants stay in the UK, a court heard today.
Ayaz Khan, 32, and Jurgita Pavlovskyte, 25, allegedly set up fake weddings of least 13 Asian men with Lithuanian women who have the right to live and work in the country.
The pair – who were married to each other but are now separated – forged Sainsbury’s job offers to bolster the applications for residency, jurors were told.
One groom had been repeatedly refused leave to remain in the UK after his student visa ran out, only to be granted residency after marrying a 20 year-old Lithuanian cleaner.
Ayaz Khan, 32, and Jurgita Pavlovskyte, 25, allegedly earned more than £500,000 after setting up sham marriages
It is claimed that the marriage of Imran Farooq and Diana Stankevic (pictured together) was one of the sham 13
Tom Forster, prosecuting, told the Old Bailey: ‘The Home Office was fooled. This was not a genuine marriage. This was a put up job.’
The court heard that non-EU nationals have to prove they are married to an EU national to live in the UK.
Khan and Pavlovskyte, together with their co-conspirators Imran Farooq, 35, Diana Stankevic, 26, and Muhammad Saqlain, 32, claim the marriages were all genuine.
But only two of the 13 couples who got married between 2011 and 2014 are still together, the court heard.
Mr Forster told jurors: ‘This case is about the subversion of lawful immigration control for profit.
‘Marriages of convenience were arranged between men from the Indian subcontinent and women for the most part from Lithuania.
‘They were carried out with a view to fooling the immigration authorities of this country into granting permission for the men to continue to live and work in the UK.
‘Residency rights are very valuable indeed and subject to strict legal immigration controls.
‘The system of legal controls was wholly undermined to the detriment of those who play by the rules.
‘It was undermined by a criminal agreement to help men make dishonest applications to live and work in the UK based on marriage to women from Lithuania.
‘These marriages were sham. Each was a union of pure convenience and designed to fool the immigration authorities.’
The grooms – 11 from Pakistan, one from India and one from Bangladesh – were all ‘desperate’ to stay in the UK after their student visas expired or their college was shut down, jurors heard.
Muhammad Saqlain (right) was allegedly involved in a sham marriage to Tatjana Rolic (left)
To get permission to live and work in the UK, non-EU nationals need to prove they are married to an EU national, that the marriage is genuine, they live together and the EU national is working and has a National Insurance number.
Their scam involved the grooms paying large sums of money to the organisers to find EU women and pay for flights to the UK, wedding expenses and a ‘modest’ payment to the brides, it is claimed.
Mr Forster added: ‘The conspirators sometimes controlled the bank accounts of the brides that were opened in the UK for their own benefit.
‘They sometimes would seek to demonstrate the brides were working in the UK by obtaining proof of employment.
‘The groom would then apply to the Home Office for residence after marriage and sometimes payments were made during the course of residence applications.
‘The bride would do all she could to assist by pretending to be happily married including posing for photos at the weddings themselves and in other social circumstances.’
Khan was responsible for finding the grooms while his wife Pavlovskyte was in control of the bride side of the business, the court heard.
Farooq and Stankevic, whose marriage to each other was one of the sham 13, helped out along with Saqlain, who was involved in a sham marriage to Tatjana Rolic, 30, it is claimed.
Twelve of the fake brides were from Lithuania and one was from the Czech Republic.
Valerija Bartosevic, 25, (left) is one of the alleged sham brides, while Sheikh Ahmad, 36, (right) is one of the alleged fake grooms
Two of the sham marriages took place in Stoke and Gretna Green, Scotland, with the others happening in London, jurors heard.
The first bogus wedding involved a 29-year-old Pakistani groom who came to the UK in 2003 on a four-year student visa.
His application for leave to remain to continue his studies was initially refused but later granted until 2009.
Further applications for leave to remain were refused in June 2009, September 2009 and July 2010.
He then applied for a certificate of approval of marriage to a 20 year-old Lithuanian woman but this was refused in March 2011.
Their marriage went ahead anyway and photos were taken of the pair posing alongside Khan, Pavlovskyte and another couple whose own sham marriage took place later the same year using a similar bouquet of flowers.
The application for residency was then granted by the Home Office on 19 March 2012.
It was due to last five years but the groom was eventually deported in 2016.
Mr Forster said that employment at Sainsbury’s was a ‘common theme’, with Khan and four other grooms having worked at the company’s stores.
A forged job offer from Sainsbury’s to sham bride Valerija Bartosevic, 25, was later found during the investigation, the court heard.
Analysis of the ringleaders’ bank accounts found a total of £297,000 was paid into Khan’s accounts in addition to his small salary from Sainsbury’s.
A total of £236,000 was withdrawn in cash between 2010 and 2016.
Mr Forster said: ‘There is an unexplained income which isn’t attributed to his salary. A great deal of that is dirty money to do with this enterprise.’
Another £238,000 of unexplained income went into Pavlovskyte’s bank account, the court heard.
Many of the bank transfers from grooms were given the titles ‘wife’ or ‘wedding’, the court heard.
Khan, of Ilford, and Pavlovskyte, of Barking, east London, Farooq and Stankevic, both of Hounslow, west London, and Saqlain, of Slough, all deny conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.
Khan and Pavloskyte also deny acquiring criminal property and converting criminal property relating to payments made for the organisation of marriages of convenience.
Fake grooms Farooq, Saqlain and Sheikh Ahmad, 36, of Brockley, southeast London, all deny one charge of securing or seeking to secure the avoidance of enforcement action by acting as grooms the weddings.
Fake brides Stankevic, Tatjana Rolic, 31, of Ilford, east London, and Bartosevic, of Brockley, southeast London, all deny one charge of assisting unlawful immigration by entering into marriages of convenience.
Jurors heard that several of the fake grooms and brides mentioned in the case, including Zia Uddin, 33, of Ilford, and Eirka Vorbjova, 27, of Walworth, southeast London, are not before the court.
The trial continues.
Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.