Sacramento man receives 2-year sentence for role in marriage fraud scheme
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A Sacramento man convicted of helping orchestrate an elaborate marriage fraud scheme catering to foreign nationals from India has been sentenced to two years in federal prison, following a probe involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Sippy Lal, 62, appeared in federal court Friday. According to court documents, from at least Oct. 24, 2006, until Jan. 10, 2012, Lal and his co-defendants Mamta Sharma, 37, and Rani Singh-Lal, 30, both of Sacramento, were involved in a fraud scheme involving foreign nationals from India who paid to enter into sham engagements or marriages with locally recruited U.S. citizens in an effort to legalize their immigration status.
“Marriage fraud is not a storyline for a Hollywood movie, it’s a federal crime, and unfortunately one that is all too common,” Tatum King, acting special agent in charge for HSI San Francisco. “As this case makes clear, HSI will aggressively target those who conspire to corrupt the integrity of America’s legal immigration system for personal profit, putting our nation’s security at risk in the process.”
The citizens recruited by Lal were paid thousands of dollars to fly to India, where they met and took pictures with a purported spouse, and sometimes entered into actual marriages (albeit often using aliases). Subsequently, fraudulent petitions were filed seeking visas allowing the Indian citizens to enter and reside in the U.S. On at least one occasion, after an alien entered the country on a fraudulent fiancé visa procured through the scheme, Lal paid a U.S. citizen to further participate by entering into a sham marriage with the alien in Sacramento.
Sharma used various aliases to pose as a U.S. citizen in five different petitions filed since 2008, despite the fact she is not a U.S. citizen and was married to Lal during that time. Similarly, Singh-Lal posed as the petitioner in three different petitions, all filed with slight variations of her true name. According to court documents, more than 25 fraudulent petitions were submitted to immigration authorities as a result of the conspiracy, and at least nine Indian nationals entered the U.S. and were, at least for some period of time, able to avoid detection.
“At U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a team of three fraud officers looked into the allegations, and developed information to provide to HSI that helped to get an admission of guilt,” said District Director Mari Carmen Jordan.
Sharma and Singh-Lal previously pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 24 months and 27 months in prison, respectively.
In addition to HSI and USCIS’ Fraud Detection and National Security Unit, the California Department of Justice – Bureau of Investigation and Intelligence also provided substantial assistance with the investigation. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michele Beckwith and Philip Ferrari.
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