A Portuguese woman was detained by judicial police in Cyprus on suspicion of forcing women into sham marriages with Hindustani nationals and is in custody awaiting extradition to that country after agreeing to stand trial there.
EUROJUST (European Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation) announced this Thursday that a transnational operation launched on January 29 has led to the arrest of 15 people – 13 in Cyprus, one in Latvia and one in Portugal – on suspicion of belonging to a criminal network. which allegedly organized 133 fictitious marriages between European women and Hindustani citizens in Cyprus.
A 44-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of recruiting women for sham marriages in Portugal, on the south bank of the Tagus River, according to the Judicial Police (PJ).
She was detained on the basis of a European arrest warrant issued by Europol at the request of the authorities of Cyprus, where the Portuguese citizen will be extradited in the coming days, the joint venture explained.
As EUROJUST reported on its official page on Thursday, the criminal network, in addition to suspicions related to fictitious marriages in order to facilitate immigration to EU countries, is also suspected of human trafficking and money laundering activities.
“The suspects allegedly recruited Portuguese and Latvian women, facilitating their travel to Cyprus, where they entered into arranged marriages with third-country nationals. The suspects took care of all the logistics, including the purchase of plane tickets, obtaining passports and other necessary documents,” EUROJUST states.
According to the European agency’s note, “marriages allowed non-EU citizens to obtain residence visas in third countries, which they then used to travel to other European countries.”
EUROJUST also states that since 2022, nine cases have been opened with the European agency to facilitate the execution of European investigative orders and European arrest warrants related to this investigation.
“The agency organized two coordination meetings and facilitated judicial cooperation between the authorities involved in the operation on the day of the operation,” the note said.
Europol’s “Limassol Task Force” was created to facilitate the joint efforts of Cyprus, Latvia and Portugal to dismantle this criminal network. Europol supported this operational “task force” by facilitating information exchange, coordinating and funding operational activities and providing tailored operational analytical support.
On the day of the operation, Europol supported activities on the ground by processing operational information collected in real time,” details EUROJUST.