[Stardust]

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090...lourished+

The happy couples came prepared for their meetings with immigration officials.



Some showed up with wedding albums featuring photos of the smiling bride and groom.

Some wore rings, necklaces or mementos they said were gifts from their new spouses. Some told stories about how they met and fell in love.

Many held hands and acted the way people expect newlyweds to behave.

But their performance was just that: An act.

Federal authorities in Cincinnati say the couples were part of a massive marriage fraud scheme that involved hundreds of immigrants who sought and were sometimes granted legal residence in the United States through phony marriages to citizens.

Documents made public recently in federal court describe an elaborate, long-running operation that authorities believe is the largest of its kind in the region's history.

"The base of operations was centered in Cincinnati, but it's nationwide," said Rich Wilkens, the agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Cincinnati. "It's national in scope."

Some couples didn't meet until the day they got married and many knowingly used phony documents and bogus wedding albums to bolster their cases with immigration officials, who review marriages between immigrants and citizens through a series of interviews to determine whether they are legitimate.

Federal prosecutors say the couples were essentially instructed to put on a show for the interviewers in hopes of convincing them they really were newlyweds, happily living together.

Prosecutors say the creator of the scheme is Bozhidar Bakalov, a U.S. citizen originally from Bulgaria who is now serving a three-year prison sentence. They say Bakalov, a former Procter & Gamble manager, kept spreadsheets, set up a client referral service and ran his illegal match-making service like any other business.

Authorities aren't sure how much money Bakalov made before he went to jail last year, but they say he charged thousands of dollars to connect Russian and Eastern European men to American women willing to fake a marriage for cash.

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"He was the one who initiated everything," said Christy Muncy, an assistant U.S. Attorney. "He was the mastermind behind it."



Muncy said most men involved in the scheme entered the United States legally, but they were facing deportation because they had lost their legal status because of expired visas or other reasons.

They could solve their problem, however, if they convinced officials with Customs and Immigration Services that their marriages to American citizens were legitimate. Under the law, immigrants may become "permanent residents" if they marry a U.S. citizen.

Bakalov's lawyer, Brian Goldberg, said his client thought he was providing a legitimate service in which the men got to stay in America, the women got paid and he made a profit.

Such practices were common in Bulgaria, Goldberg said, and Bakalov didn't know until his arrest that he was breaking the law.

"I don't think he realized what he was doing was all that bad," Goldberg said. "He looked at it as providing a service to immigrants. He had a hard time grasping that it might be a criminal act."

Immigration officials don't buy that argument. They say almost everyone involved in the operation - 14 people have been charged so far - would have known they were perpetrating a fraud on the U.S. government.

Muncy said authorities don't yet know how many immigrants were granted legal status because of the sham marriages, but they do know that hundreds of men used Bakalov's service during the several years it was in operation.

"Some actually did make it through the interview successfully," Muncy said.

Immigration officials say thousands of people gain legal status and, eventually, citizenship through legal marriages every year. But they are ramping up efforts to root out fraudulent marriages, charging 238 people nationwide with marriage fraud last year.

Wilkens said the Cincinnati case, dubbed "Operation Honeymoon's Over," still is under investigation and more people could be charged.

He said marriage fraud is a priority not only because it defrauds the government, but also because it gives immigrants an unfair advantage over those who are waiting years to legally come to this country.

Because the government limits the number of immigrants permitted to enter each year, someone who commits fraud is cutting in line.

"It's a pretty big deal," Wilkens said. "A lot of people think this kind of fraud is a victimless crime, but it's not."