Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday the unsealing of an indictment charging 11 defendants with running one of the largest marriage fraud schemes ever prosecuted in U.S. history — a multimillion-dollar operation that allegedly arranged more than 1,000 sham marriages over more than a decade so foreign nationals, primarily Chinese citizens, could obtain green cards.
According to the Southern District of New York, the network operated from at least 2016 through July 2026. Foreign nationals paid facilitators as much as $100,000 for a fake marriage and help securing lawful permanent resident status. U.S. citizens who participated were paid up to about $30,000, typically in installments tied to milestones in the green-card process. Recruiters earned commissions of up to $5,000 per person they brought in.
The defendants, mostly based in New York City boroughs, allegedly used word of mouth, social media, and advertising to market the service. Couples often met for the first time just before obtaining a marriage license. Sham wedding ceremonies were staged, complete with photographs submitted to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to make the unions appear genuine. The operation reached across multiple states — Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida — and even overseas to places including Vanuatu and China.
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald called the arrests the dismantling of “a central component of one of the largest marriage fraud schemes charged in United States history.” Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department is “rooting out fraud everywhere — including in our immigration system,” describing such schemes as “a deliberate affront to the United States and our laws.”
The 11 charged are: Amy Cheng (aka Amy Zhou), 72, of Brooklyn; Xiao Mei Chan (aka Carmen), 64, of Queens; Christine Lu (aka Lily), 52, of Queens; Jing Yan Ye (aka Serene), 43, of Staten Island; Xiao Yan Chen (aka Anna), 48, of Brooklyn; Gang Zheng (aka Michael/Mike), 61, of Queens; Anthony Cheng, 47, of Staten Island; Michelle Duenas, 35, of Staten Island; Angela Duenas, 26, of Staten Island; Sigrid Cetino, 32, of Peekskill; and Erika Johnson, 43, of Ossining.
This is the kind of large-scale, organized immigration fraud that is repeatedly described as rare, exaggerated, or the work of a few isolated bad actors — until the next indictment drops. More than a thousand staged marriages. Hundreds of U.S. citizens recruited for cash. Applications submitted for years while the system processed them. Coordinated across state lines and even international borders. And yet another reminder that the things that “never happen” keep happening, again and again, on an industrial scale.
