10 arrested as Yorkshire police join sham marriage gang raids

Investigators believe women from Eastern Europe were coming to the UK and offering themselves – for a price – as brides for would-be migrants.

The UK Border Agency’s specialist Immigration Crime Team joined forces with South Yorkshire Police to carry out a series of early morning raids on addresses in and around Rotherham and Manchester.

The operation, codenamed Razorback, was the largest to date, aimed at arresting the gang leaders and organisers as well as their would-be brides.

Unlike previous sham marriages, the grooms are not in the UK but based in Pakistan.

The UK Border Agency said brides would fly out to get married and then return, submitting an application for their husbands to come and join them here in Britain.

Officers suspect the gang thought this would be less conspicuous. Those arrested yesterday included a Pakistani man aged 25, a Pakistani woman aged 25, a Slovak man aged 19, and seven Czech and Slovak women aged between 21 and 36.

Det Sgt Alisdair Duncan, from the UK Border Agency Immigration Crime Team leading the operation, said: “Today we have arrested several suspects who we believe are part of an organised crime group and who have played a pivotal role in attempting to breach immigration law and in assisting others to do so.

“We believe we have cracked an organised conspiracy in which marriage fixers and European brides were making money from Pakistani grooms desperate to find a way to stay in the UK.

“Anyone trying to benefit illegally from the privileges of life in the UK faces prison and deportation.”

The regional director for the UK Border Agency in the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, Jeremy Oppenheim, welcomed the arrests, saying: “We will not tolerate immigration abuse.

“Our aim isn’t just to prevent illegal migration but also identify and take out those criminals behind these immigration scams.”