The Department of Justice of the United States announced on Wednesday charges against 11 individuals accused of operating a marriage fraud scheme that over the course of a decade facilitated the illegal acquisition of permanent resident cards for hundreds of Chinese citizens through sham marriages with Americans.
The authorities classify the case as one of the largest marriage fraud schemes in the history of the country, involving more than 1,000 fictitious marriages organized from New York with ramifications in at least eight states: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, as well as connections to China and Vanuatu.
The scheme operated for approximately a decade, from at least 2016 to July 2026, and generated tens of millions of dollars.
The organizers charged up to $100,000 for each fraudulently managed residency card, while the U.S. citizens recruited for the sham weddings received payments of up to $30,000. The recruiters, for their part, obtained commissions of up to $5,000 for each American included in the scheme.
To deceive immigration authorities, the defendants organized photo sessions in restaurants, opened joint bank and phone accounts, and fabricated immigration documents—including insurance policies and tax declarations—to make it appear that the couples were living together as if they were real marriages.
The 11 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.
These individuals are facing charges in the Southern District of New York for conspiracy to commit marriage and immigration fraud, with a maximum sentence of five years, and for conspiracy to facilitate the illegal presence of foreign nationals, with a maximum sentence of ten years. All the accused have been arrested and brought before the federal court for the formal reading of charges.
The Attorney General Todd Blanche was emphatic in describing the scale of the scheme: "This plan was not a quick and fleeting operation, but rather a years-long underground industry worth tens of millions of dollars, aimed at illegally assisting individuals who would otherwise not become, or legally be able to become, citizens of the United States."
Blanche also warned about the broader consequences of this type of fraud: “These plans come with a real cost. They strip our country of the ability to know who should and should not be admitted to the United States.”
The case is set against the backdrop of the immigration policy hardening under the Trump administration, which since 2025 has intensified controls over both legal and unauthorized immigration, including the requirement for mandatory in-person interviews for green cards based on marriage and an active review of already granted residency statuses in search of irregularities.
It is not the first time that networks of this kind have been dismantled in U.S. territory. In 2017, at least 15 people —mostly Cuban— were convicted in South Florida for organizing fraudulent marriages to obtain permanent residency for non-Cuban foreigners, in an operation that involved nearly forty defendants.
The official statement from the Department of Justice indicates that the case was investigated by a team specialized in transnational organized crime, highlighting the scale of the dismantled network.
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