Organizer of fraud marriage ring gets 10 years in federal prison

The leader of a fake marriage scheme that helped people illegally become U.S. residents has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.

The Office of the U.S. Attorney’s for the Southern District of Texas said Ashley Yen Nguyen, 58, was sentenced Thursday for conspiring to engage in marriage fraud, mail fraud, immigration fraud, money laundering and making false statements in a tax return. She pleaded guilty to the charges in November 2020.

Prosecutors said Nguyen personally arranged at least 40 sham marriages while running the criminal organization in Southwest Houston. 

Vietnamese nationals would give Nguyen’s organization $50,000 to $70,000 to marry a spouse in the U.S. to illegally obtain permanent resident status. Nguyen would then pay $200 to the U.S. citizens, who recruited other Americans — who typically had gang associations, drug addictions or extensive criminal histories — to act as spouses. 

The fraudulent spouses were promised between $15,000 and $20,000 in installments, although the attorney’s office said that few ever came close to receiving that much money. 

In total, the scheme facilitated more than 500 sham marriages and raked in $15 million while operating across Texas and in Vietnam.

“For more than four years, this individual raked in millions by operating one of the largest marriage fraud conspiracies in U.S. history,” Mark Dawson, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Houston, said in a press release. 

Mr. Dawson said that sham marriages “threatened national security by enabling individuals to remain in the country through deceit.”

Nguyen admitted in her plea that the spouses didn’t live together and never intended to, despite submitting documents to federal authorities suggesting otherwise. They only met once briefly, and Nguyen and other members of the criminal organization gave them information about their “relationship” to study before being interviewed by immigration officials. 

The scheme went as far as preparing fake wedding albums to make it appear as if the couples had an additional ceremony outside of a courthouse.

Nguyen bought multiple residences with the money she received from the scheme. She later used those homes as staging places for the couples when authorities conducted site inspections.