Bogus marriage scheme has bride in court and in debt

A teenage mother signed up for a bogus marriage with an Indian man to get $12,000 and escape her debts.

But the man she married has fled, leaving behind tens of thousands of dollars in debts, for which she could be liable as his legal wife.

Now she has been sentenced to 100 hours' community service for her part in the immigration scam.

This week the Wellington couple who organised the marriage were jailed for six months, the first to be imprisoned for what the Labour Department described as an increasingly common scam of arranging bogus marriages between Kiwi women and Indian men.

Taxi drivers Angela Rose Singh, 31, and Gagandeep Singh, 35, were promised $2000 for each marriage they arranged for Indian men keen to live in New Zealand.

Brides were to be paid $10,000.

One marriage went ahead, a second was stopped and a third was being planned when they were arrested.

Singh, a New Zealand resident, and her Indian husband, showed those involved how to fill out immigration forms and were instrumental in the marriages, Judge Denys Barry said in the Wellington District Court. He refused the couple home detention.

The woman who got married now has no way of finding her husband to sort out his debts and no immediate way of divorcing him. And because she now has a police record, she is barred from many countries.

As for the promised riches, she received just $4000 for her efforts.

The mother of the then 19-year-old said she herself was approached by Angela Singh in early 2003 and offered $10,000 to marry an Indian man in a Wellington registry office ceremony.

But the man decided she was too old for him and that the marriage would not be believable.

Angela Singh and her husband Gagandeep Singh asked if her daughter would be interested.

The daughter turned down the initial offer, saying she would not do it for less than $12,000.

There was an engagement ring and celebratory party with friends and a wedding dress, which she had to pay for herself.

"We did everything as though it was real."

As she entered the registry office, the Singhs paid her a deposit of $4000. A further $8000 was to be paid once the groom was granted New Zealand residency.

Because she was married, she could no longer get the domestic purposes benefit, so she sent her daughter to live with her mother and went out to work.

"They wouldn't help me with the bills or anything."

The debts started to pile up and then the Immigration Service came knocking on her door.

"They made it sound so easy and so wonderful," the woman's mother said. "We were blinded by the dollars, I guess."

- NZPA