Everybody likes weddings. Engilbert Ulan sure did. He liked them so much, he arranged and organized over 300 weddings in a five year span. Love was not necessary. It was actually discouraged. Because the weddings Ulan was organizing were really sham marriages that aimed to subvert immigration laws. Ulan made thousands of dollars for being the wedding planner to the illegal immigrants.
Ulan worked for what he referred to as an “agency” that arranged hundreds of sham marriages between foreign national “clients” and United States citizens. Ulan’s portfolio was one size fits all for a budget friendly $20,000 in cash. He prepared and submitted false petitions, applications, and other documents to substantiate the sham marriages and secure adjustment of clients’ immigration statuses.
After pairing foreign national clients with citizen spouses, the Ulan booked appointments to stage fake wedding ceremonies at chapels, parks and other locations, performed by hired online officiants. For many of his clients, Ulan would take photos of undocumented clients and citizen spouses in front of prop wedding decorations for later submission with immigration petitions.
Among other things, Ulan conducted practice interviews with his clients and their fake spouses for the purpose of preparing the couples to pass required interviews with immigration authorities. Ulan coached the sham couples to provide the same, fabricated answers to questions posed during green card interviews and conceal the fraudulent nature of the marriages. Sounds like couples’ therapy. Ulan also rented out the use of his apartment address to clients so they could list his address as their own on green card applications and related documents, to make it appear to immigration authorities that they were living together. Ulan had everything covered to execute a couple’s fraudulent dreams.
Excellent job by the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services in closing up Ulan’s agency.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “LA man convicted in Boston for large-scale marriage fraud scheme” published by ABC 10Boston on December 1, 2023
A man from Los Angeles was convicted by a federal jury in Boston for running a large-scale marriage fraud “agency” that arranged hundreds of sham marriages to circumvent immigration laws.
42-year-old Engilbert Ulan was convicted of conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and immigration document fraud. Ulan was charged with 11 others in 2022 in connection to the “agency.”
