The Justice Department has charged 11 people in what prosecutors describe as one of the largest marriage fraud cases in U.S. history, alleging they helped arrange more than 1,000 sham marriages over a decade to obtain immigration status for foreign nationals, primarily Chinese citizens.
According to an indictment unsealed Wednesday in the Southern District of New York, the network operated from at least 2016 through July 2026 and charged some foreign nationals as much as $100,000 for a sham marriage and assistance obtaining a green card.
"This scheme was not a quick fly-by-night operation, but rather a yearslong, multi-million-dollar cottage industry," Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press conference announcing the charges, as CBS News reports.
The Justice Department said through a statement that facilitators recruited U.S. citizens to marry foreign nationals, paying some participants up to $30,000 and recruiters as much as $5,000 per person. The alleged network was centered in New York but arranged marriages across several states and overseas, including in China and Vanuatu.
Prosecutors said participants sometimes met for the first time shortly before obtaining marriage licenses, staged wedding ceremonies and photographs, opened joint accounts, filed joint tax returns and obtained insurance policies to make the relationships appear legitimate. They were also allegedly coached on how to answer questions during immigration interviews.
USCIS said through a statement of its own that its Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate played a key role in the investigation. Director Joseph Edlow said the agency is "aggressively pursuing marriage fraud schemes and the criminal organizations and ringleaders who profit from them."
The Justice Department also said that the scheme caused at least hundreds of fraudulent green card applications to be submitted and may have collected tens of millions of dollars. Each defendant faces charges of conspiracy to commit marriage and immigration fraud, carrying a maximum five-year sentence, and conspiracy to encourage unlawful residence in the U.S., which carries up to 10 years.
