One in five weddings may be migrant fraud

Up to a fifth of wedding ceremonies in London could be bogus, a senior registrar warned today.

Officials fear the government's drive on immigration has triggered a surge in fake marriages.

Mark Rimmer, service director for registrations of births, deaths and marriages, believes rising numbers of foreigners are organising the ceremonies in a desperate bid to stay in the UK. Today he warned that the number of suspicious ceremonies was spiralling out of control.

He claimed racketeers setting up the fake marriages were now operating all over the country. He said: "I have been 16 years in Brent and it's the worst I have ever known. We don't have figures but the problem has increased a lot in the past year. You are looking at one in five marriages in London being bogus.

Registration offices in more and more places are reporting suspicions. The hotspots have always been in big cities where there is a high immigrant population. We never used to hear of it in areas like Norfolk or Essex but now we are.

"Because the Government is taking a tougher line on immigration, more people are looking at sham marriages as a way of staying in the UK. Whether it's becoming more organised is hard to say."

In April a crackdown on sham marriages was announced by Home Secretary David Blunkett. He said foreign nationals who want to marry may have to go to a special register office where they would be subject to immigration checks.

Registrars may also be given new powers to refuse to conduct a marriage if they believe it is a sham being carried out for immigration purposes, he added.

The bogus marriage row came as a senior Home Office chief declared that immigration could be running six times higher than official figures.

Robert Owen, who works with the National Criminal Intelligence Service on people smuggling, told a court yesterday that he could not even " guesstimate" the true numbers.

Giving evidence in a trial at Swansea Crown Court of three Chinese people accused of being part of Snakehead gangs, he said that "accepted figures for people coming in are significantly higher than official figures".