Nigerian, Abraham Akinola, 32, and his bride-to-be Roqsilmar Marti, 28, a lesbian from the Netherlands, were due to get married at St John’s Church in Tilbury, Essex, on August 25 last year but were instead slapped in handcuffs when police and Borders Agency officials hiding in the vestry jumped out to arrest them.
The London Daily Mail reports that the sting operation was launched after a tip-off by the priest, Father Tim Colding who became suspicious when the groom gave two different addresses on wedding paperwork.
And it wasn’t the first time Father Colding had rumbled suspicious couples about to wed. He said fraudsters were targeting his church in Thurrock because of its growing ethnic diversity and good train links with London and as a result he has reported more than 60 cases to the police.
He caught out one couple because when he asked the bride to repeat the vows, he began reading out train station names and she repeated them back.
Father Codling said: ‘I was asking the bride to repeat the vows and I just knew something wasn’t right.
“So I started calling out the names of stations on the c2c line – Pitsea, Benfleet and Leigh-on-Sea, and the bride started saying them back to me.
“She clearly couldn’t understand anything I was saying – I don’t think she even knew why she was in the church.”
http://leyeomole.blogspot.com/2011/05/nigerian-couple-jailed-in-uk-for-sham.html
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