Aussie women offered up to $60K to wed in visa scam

• From: NewsCore
• September 04, 2011 12:51PM

Australian women are being offered up to $60,000 to marry international students. Source: AFP

AUSTRALIAN women are allegedly being offered as much as $60,000 to wed foreigners desperate for citizenship in a visa scam, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

Top One Consultancy Services in Sydney's Chinatown is allegedly one of many agencies recruiting potential brides to match with Chinese men it solicits on the internet, an investigation by the newspaper revealed.

A woman claiming to work for the company quoted prices of up to $100,000 to arrange sham marriages, used to secure Australian partnership visas.

The service was being advertised on one of Australia's most popular Chinese-language websites, targeting students who want to stay in Australia when their studies finish, but one of the company's directors denied it dealt in sham weddings.

The woman, who identified herself in English as Melody Chan and claimed she worked for Top One Consultancy Services, said prices started at $70,000 for phony Caucasian brides and reached $

Chan said the brides -- who face jail if caught -- could expect to pocket more than half the price. In an email to The Sunday Telegraph, she said brides sold into a $70,000 sham wedding received $5,000 on the "wedding day" and $15,000 after the first interview with the Department of Immigration up to nine months later.

The final payment was made after two years, when the union was declared legitimate.

Top One Consultancy Services was registered to Zhe Feng and Ouyu Chen. Feng told The Telegraph commercial marriages were common in Australia, but denied his company arranged them.

The Department of Immigration said it would launch an investigation into the agency this week after being alerted to the claims.