FROM UK DAILY MAIL
Solicitors 'ran immigration scam arranging thousands of sham marriages by submitting touching love stories about couples who'd only just met'
- Gang arranged for brides or husbands from EU to marry non EU individuals
- At one stage several EU citizens a day were flown in from Eastern Europe
- They were housed in London before going to various registry offices
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A law firm invented scores of 'touching' love stories about foreign couples to convince immigration authorities that their sham marriages were real, a court heard yesterday.
Solicitor Tevfick Souleiman and three immigration advisers working for him made 'substantial' sums by forging documents to hoodwink the UK Border Agency during the eight year scam, it was alleged.
Brides were flown into Britain from eastern European EU countries to marry non-EU citizens, giving the grooms rights to live and work in the UK, the Old Bailey was told.
Accused: A solicitor
and his three advisors organised thousands of sham marriages between
illegal immigrants and EU Citizens, a court heard today. Defendants
Tevfick Souleiman, right and Cenk Guclu, left, are pictured
But the firm organised forged affidavits in which they 'concocted' accounts of their supposedly romantic courtships which were submitted to the authorities in order for the marriages to be approved, he said.
In one, Albanian Alban Spaho, described how he met his Bulgarian bride-to-be Petya Zlatanska while on a day out with friends in Haringey, North London in 2008 and plucked up the courage approach her.
The affidavit said: 'We went to a cafe where our friends left us alone to get on with it... Petya was a bit shy but I eventually persuaded her to let me take her out.
'We didn't go to any of the usual Bulgarian or Albanian places in North London but instead went to a really nice place in the West end.'
He described how the couple's love grew and they moved in together, adding: 'After three months I realised I wanted to be with her all the time and asked her to marry me.'
Sham: The gang arranged for brides or husbands
from the UK or the EU to marry non EU individuals, the court heard.
Defendant Zafer Altinbas is pictured
In another allegedly forged affidavit a sham marriage groom described how he met his bride a nightclub and after they got together, he eventually proposed after a romantic meal on Valentine's Day.
One Indian student who wanted to stay in the UK told how he was introduced to his Bulgarian bride to be at the firm's offices when he went to ask for immigration advice
He was taken outside to have some photos of them together taken, before being told he couldn't talk to her until the day of their marriage, it was alleged.
The marriages were going ahead despite the regular use of same addresses and a number of errors on applications including names of the applicants being misspelt, the jury heard.
The solicitor's firm also used forged tenancy agreements and employer's references, many from a company called Kebab Town.
Mr Mather said: 'They, together with others, were part of a conspiracy to breach immigration laws in this country by arranging sham marriages, or marriages of convenience.
'In doing so, they made a sizeable amount of money. The arrangement of these marriages was a lucrative business.
'Whatever may be recorded in the books, substantial sums were being paid to individuals to arrange these marriages. This was a cash business.'
Mr Mather said other work of the solicitors, such as conveyancing, was legitimate.
But he added: 'They were running not only a business but also a racket involving sham marriages.
'Substantial amounts would be paid into personal bank accounts. Clients would pay the firm £500 in accounts, but the actual sum was thousands of pounds. That money never went through the books.'
Souleiman, 39, immigration advisers Zafer Altinbas, 38, and Cenk Guclu, 41, and Furrah Kosimov, 29, deny conspiracy to breach immigration law between 2004 and last year.
Souleiman, from Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Altinbas, from Islington, north London, and Guclu, from Enfield, north London, also deny receiving proceeds of crime.
Kosimov, from Wembley, north west London, who is being tried in his absence, denies money laundering.
