Finland: Hundreds of Immigrants Busted for Sham Marriages

Finland: Hundreds of Immigrants Busted for Sham Marriages


Sham marriages for the sake of residence permits have become a lucrative business in Finland. The daily Turun Sanomat reports that courts rejected 300 residence permit applications last year that were based, say authorities, on marriages of convenience.


All in all last year, 1,930 people applied for residence permits on the basis of marriage to a Finn.


Increasingly, marriages are being arranged for large sums of money. The newspaper interviewed one Moroccan man, who says that the cost of a marriage runs from thousands to tens of thousands of euros.


Jaakko Sonck, of the National Bureau of Investigation, says that punishments for fraudulent residency applications are very mild.


The most frequent customers of false marriages are Russians, Africans, and Thai citizens.



Source: YLE (English)

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