A NUMBER of people have been arrested in an immigration probe centring on bogus weddings between East Lancashire people and Vietnamese nationals.

A specialist policing unit has ‘several’ cases where officers suspect local people of being paid thousands of pounds to wed for immigration reasons.

PC Richard Jarram said the ‘couples’ were going to ‘great lengths’ to give a ‘veneer’ of credibility to the sham weddings.

He said they were hiring hotels, inviting guests and holding a full wedding breakfast and photos in a bid to fool the authorities into thinking the union was genuine.

PC Jarram and his team have made a ‘handful’ of arrests across the area.

But he said they were at the early stages of an investigation, prompted by a tip-off from a concerned member of the public, whose was worried when a female friend ‘started flashing the cash’.

He said: “Our investigation is into marriages of convenience with UK nationals under suspicion of being paid to wed.

“We are coming across the lengths to which they are going to create a smokescreen, making it more difficult for the police to disprove.

“For example they are not going to a register office, but are holding a formal event at East Lancashire venues such as hotels, spending a bit of money dressing up, photographs, inviting guests and having a sit-down meal.”

PC Jarram said the aim was to ‘hoodwink’ the Home Office by the ‘veneer’ of a realistic wedding event.

He said police were looking into whether or not the Vietnamese sham marriages are linked to organised crime. Last June it was revealed a specialist police unit had been set up to tackle Vietnamese drug lords running cannabis farms in East Lancashire.

More than £2million worth of cannabis has been seized from the factories which often see illegal immigrants acting as onsite ‘gardeners’ for the operation on behalf of crime bosses.

PC Jarram, of the community cohesion unit, said they were linking in with the Home Office on the investigation.

EU national and foreign nationals in the UK on a restricted visa, who meet and fall in love, will first apply to the Home Office for approval for marriage.

The Home Office considers the case and if satisfied, sends the couple a certificate for approval of marriage.

They can then go to a registrar with the certificate and be married. Following the ceremony, the foreign national applies to the Home Office for a temporary two-year ‘leave to remain’. After that, if they can prove they are still man and wife, the foreign national can then apply for a permanent leave to remain in the UK.

The Lancashire Telegraph has previously reported sham marriages between Czech nationals and Nigerian men from outside Lancashire coming to Accrington in 2009 to exploit ‘naive’ vicars and enter into sham marriages.