Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
A TOTAL OF 450 marriages have been halted in Ireland since the introduction of sham marriage legislation.
Gardaí set up a dedicated operation – codenamed Vantage – two years ago to tackle an alleged trafficking ring which was using women who had been trafficked illegally into Ireland to take part in sham marriages.
Since the operation was set up in August 2015, General Registrar Offices can alert gardaí if any doubts arise about the legitimacy of any potential marriages.
The latest figures from An Garda Síochána show that since August 2015, there have been more than 250 objections to marriages raised by registrars.
Gardaí confirmed that over 80 marriages have been cancelled by the General Registrar and An Garda Síochána following enquiries and investigations by Operation Vantage.
When “no shows” on the date of the ceremony are added to the picture, an excess of 450 marriages have not been completed since Operation Vantage was launched.
“Operation Vantage has supported the marriage registrars in compiling a large number of marriage objections,” a garda spokesperson said.
“[It] also supports interview training and investigative techniques to the registrars.
“A number of international investigations are also underway in the EU and are led by Operation Vantage.”
The crackdown has also resulted in a fall in the number of notifications of intention to marry between EU and non-EU citizens.
Figures from gardaí should that 1,468 notifications were received in 2015. Last year a total of 694 notifications were received, this shows a drop of 53%.
Levels have continued to fall in 2017 with notifications recorded in January to September 2017, compared to 580 during the same period of 2016 – a drop of 41%.
Security sources told TheJournal.ie earlier this year that there were ‘hundreds’ of attempted sham marriages in recent years involving the women, who are EU citizens, and men who are predominantly from Asia and seeking to secure residency in Ireland.
The illegal activity mostly comes from countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In many cases, the women do not where they are and many have never even seen the men they are marrying.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
All that effort to provide the world with porn searches…
I always seem have more wires and complexity if I’m looking for the remote behind the Telly….. ;)
Oh so that’s where all my personal information is stored!
*waves*
It’s like the Borg Mothership !
It really is ….. Resistance is futile ….. Lol
You should consider using this. Innernette is the future. It’s 100% secure.
Yes you will be assimilated and made to serve the collective
How many tech nerds have a semi right now ? Own up ?
If anyone is nursing a semi on this bank holiday morning in here in pretty sure its you Carherine ;)
Don’t mention semi or the bankers will get a semi ….
Dublinjonny takes a bit more than shiny stuff to get my motor running but I do get a bit giddy around wooden furniture for some reason. All that tree hugging in my twenties I suppose ……….
Codswhallop ! The reality is their server room looks more like this http://m.imgur.com/y1Zgn probably
Looks more like the Sony Entertainment Network servers.
Sean: sorry for off topic but is ps store down for past 3 days or is this my console acting crazy? Thanks
I’m constantly being signed in and out.
Crikey, and I though ours was bad!
I cannot get into ps store at all – blue screen and it’s freezing there. Ffs who said digital content is the way forward… Got my system wiped and every game I have is digital – so cannot re download anything atm…I start to regret I didn’t get xone…
First paragraph rephrased:
Data centers are normally shrouded in secrecy because they are the brains behind the NSA.
Frank are you drinking red bull today ?
“And here Jimmy, is where we keep all the naked celebrities!”
The conference room is beautiful
Journal you got to stop placing direct replies to comments in the wrong position.
Seems you’re lacking a data centre Anthony!
Tape based backup. Slow to recover, prone to data integrity issues. Get with the times Google with backup to disk including dedupe and compression.
Yeh, I’m sure the lads at Google haven’t thought of that.
Ah stop lad… They employ best IT people in the world. You can be sure if there’s any great solution Google has it – or even better – they probably developed it themselves…
Wood gives you wood!
have your say