Three Chinese women detained for brokering fake marriages
2014/05/26 22:38:18
Taipei, May 26 (CNA) Three Chinese women have been detained on allegations of arranging fake marriages between women from mainland China and Taiwanese men, including those who are homeless, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) reported on Monday.
According to the NIA, the mastermind, a 40-year-old Chinese woman identified only by her family name Chang, was arrested earlier the same day along with two other Chinese women by NIA officers, who had been tracing the case on tips provided by informants since March.
Chang and her accomplices were tracked down after one of their customers failed to pass the interview with NIA officers earlier on Monday. Immigration officials typically ask women applying to enter Taiwan as spouses personal questions about their marriage or husband.
Chang admitted having brought in Chinese women wishing to land a job in Taiwan from her home province of Fujian since 2009. She was charged with document forgery in accordance with the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area.
Chang and her accomplices, who have all obtained a Taiwanese ID card, were also found to have entered Taiwan through fake marriages after their arrest.
To help her province's women pass strict interviews that the NIA introduced in late 2003 to fend off marriages of convenience, Chang, using her own experience, even taught these women how to reply to questions posed by NIA officers during practice interviews they conducted with their clients in coffee shops near the agency.
Chang hired elderly Taiwanese men or homeless people to pose as her clients' proxy husbands, paying for the men to travel to China to register the marriages. She also paid each of them an additional monthly stipend of NT$3,000 (US$100) if they passed the NIA interview in Taiwan.
The three Chinese women are being kept in a detention center in Taipei and may face a jail term of less than one year and extradition back to the mainland if found guilty.
(By C.P. Liu and Flor Wang)
