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Immigration Daily News Fraudulent marriage syndicate operating out of Sydney shut downAustralian Immigration Daily News
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Fraudulent marriage syndicate operating out of Sydney shut down
The Australian Border Force (ABF) has shut down an elaborate contrived marriages syndicate operating out of Sydney.
A 32-year-old Indian national faced court on 30 October over his alleged role as the main facilitator.
A further four Australian citizens have also been charged for allegedly convincing individuals to fraudulently marry non-citizens seeking to obtain permanent residency.
The long running operation by the ABF also resulted in 164 foreign nationals having their applications for a Partner visa refused after they were linked to the syndicate.
Source: Five-face-court-over-alleged-fraudulent-marriage-scam.pdf
Immigration blog
These sorts of cases are the exception to the rule. This space is , fortunately, not over populated by criminal entrepreneurs.
However, these cases inform the integrity measures that make it very difficult to convince the Department and the Tribunal that a relationship is genuine. RMAs would be well advised to make sure that in each spouse case the i's are dotted and the t's crossed. The key to a good application is a coherent and consistent history and good documentation in line with Regs 1.15A(2) and (3) of the Migration regulations.
In order for the client to transcend the negativity and hectoring and bullying that goes on at the Tribunal by members who are locked into the "integrity" model, Clients should in each case be represented and good submissions made at first instance and subsequently on appeal at the AAT. Do not assume that good documentation is going to be treated as anything other than broadly indicative of a claimed relationship as, has been correctly pointed out, documentation in joint names is not "dispositive" to the extent that joint documentation is easy to come by. On the other hand being bullied at a hearing about the decision to have a joint bank account as being an attempt to mislead the Tribunal is, quite frankly, bias and a little mad.