UK Prosecutors Charge 5 Albanians Over Sham Marriage Scheme

Denis Hani, 30, has pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation but the four other men have yet to enter any pleas.

A police officer making notes on Oct. 22. 2014. Joe Giddens/PA Wire

Five Albanian men who allegedly took part in bogus marriages to European Union nationals so they could enter and live in Britain have been charged by UK prosecutors.

The Crown Prosecution Service, in a statement, said the men were accused of using fake marriage licenses to claim they were married to EU citizens, who have a right to live in Britain under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS), which was negotiated as part of the Brexit agreement.

After Britain left the EU, the scheme was set up to allow EU citizens and their families to stay in the country.

“Prosecutors allege that they obtained fake marriage certificates purporting to show they got married in Cyprus to EU nationals who had a right to reside in the UK,” the CPS said in its statement.

Cyprus, an island in the eastern Mediterranean that was once a British colony and still has two UK military bases, is a member of the EU.

The men were arrested after raids across England and Wales on June 17.

One of the men, Denis Hani, 30, pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation and two other offenses when he appeared at Birkenhead Magistrates Court on June 18.

Hani is in custody and will be sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court on July 16.

Four other men—Valdet Qoshi, 40, Kastriot Hoxha, 31, Sina Ervin, 35, and Kadri Sinamati, 28—have been charged with fraud and immigration offences.

Hoxha has also been charged with possession of cannabis.

They are being held in custody and will appear at Sheffield Crown Court on July 16 for a plea hearing.

It was not immediately clear whether any of the men had legal representatives who could comment on their behalf.

Shaun Sigamoney, from the CPS, said the men had been charged with fraud and immigration offenses in connection with alleged fake marriages.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

“While one man has pleaded guilty, that has no bearing on the case of the other four, who are innocent until proven guilty,” Sigamoney said.

He said the four men who had pleaded guilty all had the right to a fair trial.

“It is vital that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information which could in any way prejudice these proceedings,” Sigamoney said.

Albania is not an EU member state, and its nationals are not ordinarily permitted to enter or live in Britain without a visa.

In 2023, it was reported that more than half of the illegal immigrants who claimed to be victims of “modern slavery” after crossing the English Channel in the first half of 2022 were Albanian.

Many of the Albanian illegal immigrants were responding to adverts on TikTok posted by people traffickers, but most of these were removed later in 2023 when the app changed its policy.

June 2021 Application Deadline

The deadline for applications to the EUSS was June 30, 2021, but it remains open to late applicants with “reasonable grounds for missing the deadline, as well as eligible joining family members.”

The British government says that, by the end of 2025, the EUSS “had provided over 5.8 million EU, other EEA and Swiss citizens, and their eligible family members, with the immigration status they need to live in the UK.”

In May 2024, Jurick Croes, a Dutch national, was convicted of murdering 24-year-old Riches Obi in London after a trial which heard the killing was linked to a dispute over a “sham marriage scheme.”

The court heard that Obi’s mother, Bernadette Ortet—a case worker at a firm of lawyers that specialized in immigration work—was setting up bogus weddings between Dutch nationals and Nigerian women, and Croes was either angry at not being paid or was trying to steal the cash.

Croes—who was later jailed for life—said he had been promised £12,000 ($15,800) to marry a Nigerian woman, who wanted to live in the UK.