A bogus Lithia Springs matchmaker was convicted of fraud for arranging marriages designed to help keep undocumented immigrants in the country, federal court officials said.
Rex Anyanwu was found guilty of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, alien harboring and even violating the law to gain citizenship for himself, authorities said.
“For at least 11 years, the defendant ran a fraudulent marriage factory,” U. S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said in a statement. “He paid U.S. citizens to marry aliens and then lied to immigration officials to assist the aliens in their illegal efforts to stay in the United States. Anyanwu’s illegal business has been shut down and he will now lose his own citizenship.”
Between 2001 and 2012, Anyanwu paid U.S. citizens $700 each to marry immigrants, many of them from Nigeria and Kenya, prosecutors said. And those immigrants paid as much as $10,000 to find Americans willing to marry them, prosecutors said.
Both citizens and immigrants testified in court that they often didn’t meet until the day of the wedding, sometimes even being introduced on the steps of the courthouse where the marriages were held.
Anyanwu advised the “couples” to bring changes of clothing to take photos purporting to show their lives together to fool immigration officials, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said he even filed bogus visa applications and forged names onto paperwork that was submitted to immigrations officials. And for an extra charge, Anyanwu would doctor up tax forms, leases, job verification letters and bills to show that couples actually were sharing a life together, court officials said.
Witnesses testified that Anyanwu even coached the fake couples, for a fee, on the questions that immigration inspectors asked during interviews so that they could provide answers that any legitimate couple would know, prosecutors said.
One witness from Huntsville, Ala., testified that when she was arrested for using a fraudulent identification while pretending to be the spouse of one of Anyanwu’s clients, he abandoned her in Atlanta and later threatened her in the hopes of keeping her from identifying his part in the caper, authorities said.
Another witness said she referred 50 U.S. citizens to him to get paid to marry people born in Africa, prosecutors said.
Anyanwu faces up to 15 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $750,000, court officials said.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. Jan. 27, authorities said.
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