As a vicar, Robert Simpson is used to dealing with couples who claim to have fallen in love at first sight.
But when he met father-of-two Mojeed Bello, 31, and Carina Merselina, 25, to arrange their big day, he realised something was wrong as the couple appeared to know nothing about each other.
The only thing Bello could tell officers about his beloved was that she's 'big, black, liked smoking and chicken burgers'.
Jailed: Carina Merselina, right, was offered £3,000 to marry Nigerian illegal immigrant Mojeed Bello, leftAnd after Mr Simpson, the vicar at St James, Gloucester, called the police, it turned out his hunch was correct.
Police later discovered that Bello, a Nigerian illegal immigrant, had arranged to marry Dutch national Merselina so that he could continue living in the UK.She admitted that she had been recruited at a pop festival in Holland and agreed to go ahead with the marriage in return for £3,000.
After the pair admitted the scam, Bello was jailed for 14 months while his would-be bride was jailed for 300 days at Gloucester Crown Court.
Merselina's sister Loreen was also jailed for 300 days after admitting being involved in the fraud.
Prosecutor Martin Steen said the vicar was so concerned he went to check the address nearby that the couple had given him.
'When he got to the flat he found it had all the appearances of student digs,' he said.
'He saw no evidence that it was the couple's home, as claimed. His visit did nothing to reassure him that this was a genuine marriage.
'However, he did see the couple at that address but again saw nothing between them to confirm their asserted closeness.
'He determined the marriage was a sham and he reported it to the police.'
Mr Steen added: 'He noticed then that there didn't appear to be anything of a real relationship between the woman and her fiance and they did not give out that they were properly engaged to each other.'
Fake romance: Carina Merselina's husband-to-be barely knew anything about her
Wedding service: The 'couple' hoped to tie the knot at St James Church, GloucesterWhen first questioned by police, Mr Steen said Bello continued to claim it was a genuine relationship and told police he had first met Carina at Notting Hill Carnival.
'But he appeared to know little about her except that she was "big, black and liked smoking and chicken burgers,"' Mr Steen said.
Loreen Merselina travelled to Gloucester with her sister Carina to assert that the sham marriage was genuine.
Bello, from Peckham, London, Carina and her sister Loreen, 35, of no fixed address, all admitted conspiracy to stop Bello being deported from the UK.
The court heard that another man who had also been involved in the scam, Aderojo Babatunde, had been sentenced at an earlier hearing to 300 days' imprisonment after he admitted a similar offence.
Mr Steen told the court that Bello had lived in the UK since 2006 and a previous attempt by him to marry an EU national in 2008 had failed.
Stephen Thomas, for Bello, said he was simply desperate to stay in this country with his partner so their two children could have a better life than he had in Nigeria.
He realised he had been foolish and he bitterly regretted his behaviour, Mr Thomas said.
Bello's two children, aged six and seven, are pupils at Peckham junior school and have been writing affectionate letters to their father in jail, he added.
For Carina, David Billingham said she was a student in Holland and was tempted to take part simply because she needed the money.
Judge William Hart said they had 'engaged in a cynical commercial arrangement to try to flout UK immigration law'.
He said 'This sort of offence is becoming somewhat prevalent - it strikes at the very heart of the UK system for regulating the population.'
He went on 'This was a particularly bad example of this type of offending in my judgement. It only failed due to the intervention and vigilance of others.'
source:dailymail
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