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Andrea Torres, 55, and Regina Johnson, 57, recruited and paid American citizens to participate in the fraud by posing as spouses, an indictment returned by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Newark alleges.
The Newark sisters went so far as pushing clients to take photos in a variety of locations in different clothing to make it appear that they were living together when they weren't, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said Friday.
Torres and Johnson devised the scheme to "help non-citizens who wished to remain in the United States despite lacking legal status or the proper documentation," Sellinger said.
As part of the fraud, they "arranged and charged their clients for wedding ceremonies and afterparties that were staged to make the sham marriages appear legitimate," the U.S. attorney said, quoting the indictment.
The sisters also "advised their clients on ways to make their marriage appear legitimate on paper, including the opening of joint bank accounts and frequent meetings with their U.S. spouses," Sellinger said.
Then they "helped their non-citizen clients fill out immigration forms to obtain permanent residency on the basis of materially false misrepresentations," he said.
Sellinger credited special agents of the Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Investigation with the investigation leading to Friday's indictment, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sammi Malek of his National Security Unit in Newark.
Torres and Johnson are each charged with conspiracy and will be arraigned at a later date, the U.S. attorney said.
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