Brides-for-hire racket probed for terror

(ANSA) - Rome, August 21 - Rome anti-terror police sources told ANSA Friday they are probing a bride-for-hire racket involving destitute Italians and foreign nationals for possible terrorist links. An ANSA investigative report sparked the probe into what police say is a clandestine network recruiting prospective spouses in squats and soup kitchens in Rome, offering them three to four thousand euros to travel to Cairo to marry a would-be immigrant. The weddings take place in Egypt with Coptic Christian or Catholic rites, after which the foreign national can apply for residency in Italy.
    "We have organized a dozen such trips," explained A., a 40-year-old Italian who recruits Italian spouses and deals with marriage registration red tape.
    "The marriage requests arrive through the Italian embassy in Cairo," he added.
    The Italian spouse is given his or her fee and is free to go home within a couple of weeks of the nuptials, he said.
    While the entire transaction runs around 9,000 euros, two requests for Italian marriage partners offering twice the usual rate came in after the July 11 car bombing of the Italian consulate in Cairo, raising anti-terror police suspicions.
    Meanwhile in Rome, a 33-year-old unemployed Italian mother told ANSA in an interview Friday she is about to embark on her second marriage-for-hire to a foreigner. The woman, known only as S., lives with her two-year-old daughter in a 30-square-meter room in a Rome squat, and is preparing to fly to Cairo to wed a stranger in exchange for 9,000 euros. "I need the money," said the bride-for-hire. "They've promised me lots, but to tell you the truth I would do it for much less," she said, holding her toddler in her arms. "I don't work, but I'm not a criminal," she added. She went on to explain that her first wedding for hire was to a Brazilian transsexual in Rome, so he could get his residency permit.
    Her broker, she said, is an Italian national who wed an Eritrean woman in Iran. "When I get back I'm going to buy a couple of things for my daughter," she said. "A wedding is one thing, love is quite another. For me neither matters, nor does it matter to the immigrants. I just want to get by."