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Sham Marriage Sting Ends in Arrests

Six U.S. Navy crew members, looking for quick and profitable marriages to illegal aliens, face federal charges after they were among 10 people caught in an FBI sting operation investigating sham unions. The six, stationed onboard the U.S.S. Eisenhower in Norfolk, Virgina, were caught after the FBI learned that a Baltimore man, Kenneth Adam Howard, 26, was recruiting men and women to enter sham marriages in New York, according to a complaint in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The initial complaint alleges Howard, who was among those charged with conspiracy, offered to provide people to marry illegal aliens at a cost of $3,000 to $4,000 per marriage. The sting began after the FBI learned that Howard had arranged for an illegal immigrant from Morocco to enter into a sham marriage with a Virginia truck driver who is a U.S. citizen, the complaint said.

The six Navy members and a former seaman who had been assigned to the U.S.S. Eisenhower came in recent weeks to New York, where they thought they were meeting illegal aliens from Egypt, Russia, South America and Europe. Instead, they were meeting FBI undercover agents or informants and cooperating witnesses working under the FBI`s supervision, prosecutors said. Each of the conspirators could face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, if convicted.