NEW YORK, Aug. 13 (DC Times Online) — Federal prosecutors in New York have charged 11 people with allegedly arranging more than 1,000 sham marriages over more than a decade, in what the Justice Department called one of the largest marriage-fraud schemes charged in U.S. history.
The two-count indictment was unsealed Aug. 12 after federal authorities announced the arrests. Attorney General Todd Blanche discussed the case at a news conference in Washington, D.C. The prosecution was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The defendants are Amy Cheng, Xiao Mei Chan, Christine Lu, Jing Yan Ye, Xiao Yan Chen, Gang Zheng, Anthony Cheng, Michelle Duenas, Angela Duenas, Sigrid Cetino and Erika Johnson. Each is charged with conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and immigration fraud, and conspiracy to encourage the unlawful residence of noncitizens in the United States. The charges are accusations; the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
What prosecutors allege
According to the Justice Department’s description of the indictment, the alleged network operated from at least 2016 through July 2026. It was based mainly in New York City but arranged marriages across the United States and overseas, including in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Vanuatu and China.
Prosecutors allege that Chinese nationals paid facilitators as much as about $100,000 for a sham marriage and help applying for lawful permanent resident status, commonly known as a green card. U.S. citizens who agreed to participate allegedly received as much as about $30,000, usually through payments tied to stages of a green-card application. Recruiters allegedly received up to about $5,000 for each U.S. citizen they brought into the scheme.
The indictment alleges that at least hundreds of fraudulent green-card applications and supporting documents were submitted to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Prosecutors believe the network collected tens of millions of dollars from foreign nationals seeking permanent-resident status.
The charging materials also describe alleged efforts to make the marriages appear genuine. Those efforts included advertising through social media, arranging wedding photographs or ceremonies, creating joint accounts or other records, and coaching participants on information they might provide to immigration officials, according to the Justice Department’s account of the indictment.
Why sham marriages can lead to immigration charges
Marriage to a U.S. citizen can provide a path for a foreign national to seek lawful permanent resident status. But federal law requires the marriage to be genuine rather than entered into mainly to obtain an immigration benefit.
A sham marriage is a marriage that prosecutors say was arranged or entered into for an improper immigration purpose. In this case, prosecutors allege that the participants and facilitators submitted false information or documents to support applications for green cards.
The Justice Department said the first conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison if a defendant is convicted. The second carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. Those are statutory maximums, not predictions of what any defendant would receive after a conviction.
What is known about the case
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald, whose office in the Southern District of New York is prosecuting the case, said the defendants and their alleged co-conspirators operated a nationwide and international, multimillion-dollar scheme for profit.
The Justice Department has described the case as one of the largest of its kind in U.S. history. The materials released so far do not provide a comparison with all prior marriage-fraud cases or establish an official ranking.
The alleged conduct was centered in New York and extended across several states and foreign countries. Washington, D.C., was the site of the attorney general’s public announcement, but the supplied charging information does not identify a specific D.C. defendant, marriage, arrest site or alleged act.
The public materials do not say how many of the more than 1,000 marriages resulted in approved green-card applications. They also do not provide the defendants’ plea positions, arraignment outcomes, assigned judge or case number. No charges have been proven in court.
