Five members of a Nigerian smuggling syndicate were on Tuesday arrested by Police in Germany, according to a statement from the federal police.
The Smugglers were engaged in bringing Nigerian men into Germany through fake marriages.
A major raid was carried out by four hundred police officers on some apartments and rooms suspected to be linked to the syndicate in Berlin and other German cities, according to the statement.
The police gave details of those arrested saying they include four women and a man whose age ranges from 46 to 65, Reuters reports.
Reuters quoted Germany’s newspaper Bild as saying that federal police investigation revealed that at least 70 men were brought into the European country illegally through arranged marriages with Portuguese women.
Some clients according to the investigations paid up to 13,000 euros for fake certificates. Part of the money went to women who fly from Portugal to join their “husbands” at the German immigration office to apply for an EU residency permit.
Germany’s Interior Ministry estimates that there are about 5,000 such cases per year nationwide, according to Reuters.
Source: Africafeeds.com
