Nine held in Rotherham sham marriages swoop

NINE people were arrested in Rotherham today as immigration officers swooped to smash a  gang suspected of trading in sham marriages.

Another arrest was made in Manchester as part of a series of co-ordinated raids by officers from the UK Border Agency.

The suspects were Pakistani, Czech and Slovak men and women.

They are believed to have been part of a gang flying women from Eastern Europe out to Islamabad in Pakistan as brides for would-be migrants.

A spokesman for the Border Agency said the newly-wed women would then fly back to the UK where they would submit applications for their husbands to join them in the UK.

The Agency says it thinks that the gang thought this less direct route would be less conspicuous than attempting to marry here in the UK.

The operation– code named Razorback– is the largest to date carried out by the UK Border Agency's Immigration Crime Team in the region.