Thread: UK residency - possible scam and need advice

Think this is the right place for this.

One of my nieces has decided to marry a Morrocan Muslim. So far so good, however she met him on the internet within the last year. She has visited him once on holiday, came back engaged and within a month announced they are to marry. Now she is converting to Islam and will not listen to any of our family when we urge caution. Also will not answer questions, such as, 'which version of Islam are you going to follow?'

Everyone I have spoken to (including a Muslim African friend), have said she is being used purely to gain UK residency. She's old enough to make her own decisions, but is rather nieve in the workings of the World - she's profoundly deaf. I can see her life going pear shaped and us all having to pick up the pieces for her!

Basically, I need advice (sensible - this isn't the NAAFI) on what to do. Anyone on here have anything to do with Immigration Services, or whatever they're called now?

Thanks in advance.

http://ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/partne...lies/partners/

Serious advice.

Ask whether she would be prepared to live in Morocco and apply for Moroccan citizenship.

Ask whether her fiance would accept this.

You can only plant the seeds of ideas and hope that she will figure it out for herself.

Don't say anything to make her dig her heels in.

Converting to Islam and getting engaged to an exotic bloke met on holiday is a double whammy, but neither one nor the other would be that unusual for a youngster coming back from exciting foreign places.

Don't despair yet.

Make sure she gets nothing less than £5000 in cash for her part in the scam. I believe that's the going rate now.

Its okay, the law lords are on her side

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...n-illegal.html

If it is any consolation, a similar thing happened to a friend of mine (she married an Egyptian). He took all her money, hid her passport and kept her virtually a prisoner in a Cairo slum until she escaped back to the UK 12 months later, penniless.

OK thanks all, pretty much what we had concluded.

Bakerlite, some sound points. She has already told her mum (my sis), that if he fails to gain residency, she will bugger off over there. At first glance, this seems fair. However, she has kids from a previous relationship and said she's leave them here with her mum! I told her mum, to tell her to poke that idea, but I doubt that advice will go any further.

As for 'Converting to Islam and getting engaged to an exotic bloke met on holiday is a double whammy, but neither one nor the other would be that unusual for a youngster coming back from exciting foreign places.' She's 35 ffs! the problem with profoundly deaf people, is that they do not see/read the world as we do and I fear she has already dug her heels in. Ironically, Islam is for women, a submissive position and she is stubborn as hell.

Am toying with an informal phone call to immigration and give a sort of heads up. just worried what would happen as she has kids involved.

You could give immigration the heads-up (with specific reference to her passport number) on her current plans. They'll probably consider that it could be bona fide (although love is blind, not deaf), so without some "actionable" (read unlawful) aspect to her plans it's hard to see how they'd stop her.

My advice, FWIW, would be to get plans in place for when/if it all goes tits-up. Think about getting a second passport if she's going to Morocco (pretty straightforward now) in case she needs to make a covert exit if he's not playing ball.

Long shot, but you might want to think about taking a Ryanair flight out there and checking the guy out. Make your own judgement on whether he's kosher (he might be deaf too....or there could be some othere genuine bond). You can also check out his broader credentials.

Would also be better to have him come to the UK where she has some protection at law. He'd have to be resident and married for three years (with ILR) before being granted the right to citizenship (although the ILR would remain and he'd get his citizenship ticket clipped after 7 years).

On approach, I'd couch everything I did in such as way as it seems you're trying to help her, so you need to take a positive attitude towards it all. That way you stand a better chance of her taking you into her confidence and you getting good intel.

Good luck with it all, whatever you do it sounds like it's going to be a cluster-feck.

Thanks banker, some very good advice there; especially the passport bit. I truly hope we are just being paraniod, but contingency plans are always a good thing.

The second passport suggestion is excellent and might prove invaluable. You should sugest that she leave the second passport with family "for emergencies"

A friend of mine here in the states had a similar sort of situation in Italy. His daughter met an Italian man here on a tourist visa and thought he has so very very romantic, much nicer than US boys. They married and the wedding was very strange, grooms family were bizarre and his mother was barking mad. The groom got his Green Card and started a business. After a baby was on the way his business failed (not surprising) and he left for Italy with Laura and baby to avoid threatening creditors. Every time she talked about returning to the US her passport and baby's passport were found to be "misplaced" and his family was always "too busy" to get her to a consulate or the Embassy in Rome.

The poor girl was miserable, treated like a slave by inlaws. Her dad is a postman and a pretty quiet guy but finally he flew to Italy with his two younger police officer brothers. They got Laura way without force but with the availability of force implied (brothers are big fit guys) ang got her home safely. She's working, and the baby is fine. The only major problem left is that her husband had gotten her to sign a lot of the papers for his business and she had to file for bankruptcy because of his debts. She recently missed a promotion which would have required a clearance.

US and UK passports are like gold to people from other countries. Get a second passport and keep it in the UK in case a rescue mission is needed.

Also, best of luck. It sounds like you might need it.

Originally Posted by Recce19

OK thanks all, pretty much what we had concluded.

Bakerlite, some sound points. She has already told her mum (my sis), that if he fails to gain residency, she will bugger off over there. At first glance, this seems fair. However, she has kids from a previous relationship and said she's leave them here with her mum! I told her mum, to tell her to poke that idea, but I doubt that advice will go any further.

Without wanting to sound heartless...at least if she leaves them here, he can't use them as leverage on her! And is it HIM she's not sure of with her kids, or does she not want them growing up in Morrocco? She may already have doubts if she doesn't want her kids there with her!

Originally Posted by bigbird67

Originally Posted by Recce19

OK thanks all, pretty much what we had concluded.

Bakerlite, some sound points. She has already told her mum (my sis), that if he fails to gain residency, she will bugger off over there. At first glance, this seems fair. However, she has kids from a previous relationship and said she's leave them here with her mum! I told her mum, to tell her to poke that idea, but I doubt that advice will go any further.

Without wanting to sound heartless...at least if she leaves them here, he can't use them as leverage on her! And is it HIM she's not sure of with her kids, or does she not want them growing up in Morrocco? She may already have doubts if she doesn't want her kids there with her!

I agree completely. In the incident I described above the inlaws at one point "found" Laura's passport but "could not find" the baby's passport and she would not leave the baby. My friend had to stop at the embassy in Rome for an emergency replacement passport which they got but it did delay things a couple of days. I also agree that if she is leaving kids in UK it is a good sign that she is thinking of possible problems.

God, what a depressingly familiar story.
The best suggestion I have is that she tells her Moroccan fiance that she wants to live in Morocco with him and there's no way she'd ever want to bring him back to the UK with her. His reaction to that idea - either accepting it or insisting that he comes here with her - will surely give a good pointer as to whether she's being used or not; after all if it's a genuine relationship then he won't mind, will he?
The only problem with this is that she doesn't sound like she's prepared to entertain the idea that he's not really wanting to marry her for love, so unless you/someone can convince her that testing him out is a good idea then well, he's found himself the mug he was looking for.

Or, it could all be above board, they're truly in love, there's nothing sinister about it at all and you and everyone you have spoken to are just xenophobic bigots too quick to judge others... but I doubt it.

Just say, I hope you are very happy together, when are you getting married, I hope Im invited etc etc.

If you stay friends with her, you can keep tabs on her, trying to keep the fiance out of the country just complicates things.

You never know, he may be a very nice man.

It IS awful when your first thought is "it's a scam"...sad reflection really. All you can do is, as others have said, support her as best you can, try to talk her out of taking any loans or debts on for the first few years at least and hope he's either genuine or shows his true colours early on!

Originally Posted by DavidBOC

Originally Posted by bigbird67

Originally Posted by Recce19

OK thanks all, pretty much what we had concluded.

Bakerlite, some sound points. She has already told her mum (my sis), that if he fails to gain residency, she will bugger off over there. At first glance, this seems fair. However, she has kids from a previous relationship and said she's leave them here with her mum! I told her mum, to tell her to poke that idea, but I doubt that advice will go any further.

Without wanting to sound heartless...at least if she leaves them here, he can't use them as leverage on her! And is it HIM she's not sure of with her kids, or does she not want them growing up in Morrocco? She may already have doubts if she doesn't want her kids there with her!

I agree completely. In the incident I described above the inlaws at one point "found" Laura's passport but "could not find" the baby's passport and she would not leave the baby. My friend had to stop at the embassy in Rome for an emergency replacement passport which they got but it did delay things a couple of days. I also agree that if she is leaving kids in UK it is a good sign that she is thinking of possible problems.

Again, thanks for this. I've just pased this info on to my sis - her mother and hopefully she can sort it.

Now that you said about the kids, it makes sense and I feel I misread that on her part (hopefully). I'm at a loss as to what else, if anything, we can do. Too many questions and 'advice', she will just do it to damn us. Also being in a different country to her, doesn't help with comms.