A NEW police unit set up to investigate sham marriages has identified at least 40 suspicious weddings in Accrington.

Lancashire Immigration Crime Team is now working with church leaders to issue guidance to help priests spot fraudsters.

Detectives believe city-based Nigerian and Eastern European crime gangs target Accrington because its clergy ‘are not as alive to this kind of abuse’.

The grooms, mainly Nigerian, pay anything between £2,000 and £10,000 to get married.

Brides, often cash-strapped Eastern Europeans such as Czechs or Slovaks living legally in the country, are approached with an offer of cash for marriage.

Through the marriage the groom can win the right to stay in the UK.

As the Lancashire Telegraph reported yesterday, Czech woman Monika Slepcikova, 23, and Nigerian Unchenna Peter Ezimorah, 36, were each jailed after undertaking a sham marriage at St Peter's Church, Accrington, on June 2009.

As the legal citizen, Slepcikova was paid £2,000 to go through with the ceremony so that Ezimorah, who paid a third party £3,000 for 'administration', could apply to the Home Office for permanent UK residency.

But the team believes this is just the tip of the iceberg.

At least five cases in East Lancashire are going through the courts and many more investigations are currently being worked on.

Across the North West, there have been 64 arrests and multiple prosecutions.

Now the dedicated unit has been set up at Lancashire police's Hutton headquarters.

As well as sham marriages, it is also looking at illegal working and serious fraud connected to immigration.

Police and UK Borders Agency staff said they had made 'significant progress' and aim to get at the 'higher layers' of crime gangs.

Inspector Dave Magrath, who oversees the operation in the North West, said his team believed several small organised groups of non-EU nationals were liaising with similar groups of EU nationals to co-ordinate the sham marriage racket.

On why Accrington was being targeted, Insp Magrath said: "It is certainly the case that the vicars in metropolitan areas with bigger demographics are more alive to this kind of abuse.

"You can take the reverse from that as to why churches in Accrington are being used.

"We are particularly active in the metropolitan areas with enforcement so it is reasonable to assume they head to a more remote region with less chance of being apprehended.

"The churches in these areas are onside and helping us with our inquiries.

"We are educating them on how to spot sham marriages and they are alive to this kind of thing now in East Lancashire.

"We are making excellent headway. Immigration rules have been beefed up around asylum, so now these people are testing other avenues to achieve the ultimate goal – that is to stay in the UK."

Insp Magrath said there was no suggestion of any priests being complicit in the scam, as happened with East Sussex Rev Alex Brown, who was jailed earlier this month for carrying out 360 sham ceremonies.

The team is now set to liaise with the Archdeacon of Blackburn, the Venerable John Hawley, to issue guidelines for all the diocese's clergy on what to look out for.

That includes no intimacy between the 'couple', no personal knowledge, not speaking the same language, cultural and religious differences, false documents and more discreet indicators such as tags still in clothes, because they intend to return them to the store the next day.

Meanwhile the priest who unwittingly oversaw a sham wedding in Accrington said the bogus couple seemed to be 'affectionate' with each other.

Father David Lyon, who was the vicar at St Peter's Church, Cartmel Avenue, for 19 years until recently, called for 'more rigorous' checks when a marriage licence is issued.

He said: “It started with a Nigerian gentleman getting in touch and asking to book a wedding.

He came to see me and swore an affidavit that he was who he said he was and lived where he said he lived.

“I photocopied his and her passports and ID documents and a proof of address and sent the documents to the Diocese registrar which issues a marriage licence.

"As I now understand it these were forged documents, but I'm no passport expert and the marriage duly took place."

Fr Lyon said he would now visit a couple in their home if he had any suspicions.

He said: "They wanted to get married in a couple of months and I questioned that, but they said it was their culture and she was pregnant.

“They seemed to be affectionate. There was nothing alarming and he was very attentive.

“Our experience in Accrington last year shows they had some success and, speaking for Accrington, we clergy are very wary now.”

Fr Lyon, who is now at St Anne’s Parish Church, St Annes, said the more rigorous checks of a 'Superintendents Registrar Certificate' – used for weddings at hotels and registry offices – could be the way forward.