UK Police probing migration racket behind 360 sham marriages

London, July 30 (ANI): Police in Britain are reportedly investigating an international multi-million-pound racket to help thousands of illegal immigrants stay in the country after a vicar was found guilty of conducting hundreds of sham marriages.

The Reverend Alex Brown, of St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, joined Ukrainian Vladymyr Buchak and Nigerian Michael Adelasoye is reported to have to set up 360 fake weddings in four years.

According to the Daily Express, the Lewes Crown Court was told that East Europeans were paid 3,000 pounds to marry Africans seeking UK residency.

But there have also been raids on at least a dozen suspicious church weddings across the UK, with 23 arrests and 24 people jailed since October 2009. Many are thought to be connected.

Gareth Redmond, of the UK -Border Agency, said: "At the back of these there is something larger. There is the potential that this is a bigger organised-crime gang."

Church insiders admit the cases may be only the tip of the iceberg, with no one knowing how much it is costing taxpayers to keep bogus brides and grooms in the UK. (ANI)