http://www.ansa.it/english/news/general_news/2015/08/21/brides-for-hire-racket-probed-for-terror_0cf47798-3bdf-4a4c-b5c4-9f8738f64f45.html
Brides-for-hire racket probed for terror
Destitute Italians recruited in squats, soup kitchens
© ANSA/AP
21 August 201519:43
NEWS
(ANSA) - Rome, August 21 - Rome anti-terror police sources told ANSA
Friday they are probing a bride-for-hire racket involving destitute
Italians and foreign nationals for possible terrorist links. An ANSA
investigative report sparked the probe into what police say is a
clandestine network recruiting prospective spouses in squats and soup
kitchens in Rome, offering them three to four thousand euros to travel
to Cairo to marry a would-be immigrant. The weddings take place in
Egypt with Coptic Christian or Catholic rites, after which the foreign
national can apply for residency in Italy.
"We have organized a dozen such trips," explained A., a 40-year-old
Italian who recruits Italian spouses and deals with marriage
registration red tape.
"The marriage requests arrive through the Italian embassy in
Cairo," he added.
The Italian spouse is given his or her fee and is free to go home
within a couple of weeks of the nuptials, he said.
While the entire transaction runs around 9,000 euros, two requests
for Italian marriage partners offering twice the usual rate came in
after the July 11 car bombing of the Italian consulate in Cairo,
raising anti-terror police suspicions.
Meanwhile in Rome, a 33-year-old unemployed Italian mother told ANSA
in an interview Friday she is about to embark on her second
marriage-for-hire to a foreigner. The woman, known only as S., lives
with her two-year-old daughter in a 30-square-meter room in a Rome
squat, and is preparing to fly to Cairo to wed a stranger in exchange
for 9,000 euros. "I need the money," said the bride-for-hire. "They've
promised me lots, but to tell you the truth I would do it for much
less," she said, holding her toddler in her arms. "I don't work, but
I'm not a criminal," she added. She went on to explain that her first
wedding for hire was to a Brazilian transsexual in Rome, so he could
get his residency permit.
Her broker, she said, is an Italian national who wed an Eritrean
woman in Iran. "When I get back I'm going to buy a couple of things
for my daughter," she said. "A wedding is one thing, love is quite
another. For me neither matters, nor does it matter to the immigrants.
I just want to get by."
Received on Fri Aug 21 2015 - 23:10:30 EDT