GAY WEDDINGS TARGETED FOR UK CITIZENSHIP

Same-sex marriages were made legal in March this year but within weeks of the legislation coming into effect, criminal gangs were touting sham gay weddings to those wanting to dodge immigration controls.

Inside Out London went undercover to expose the fraud and discovered one gang that organises sham gay marriages for £10,000.

The reporter posed as an illegal immigrant urgently seeking a sham marriage to stay in the UK, while another posed as an uncle.

Peter and Ricardo, the gang's leaders, boasted to the undercover reporters they had "fixed" weddings "lots of times".

They offered two potential fake Romanian brides to the reporter, both of whom explicitly stated they were not lesbians but were willing to pretend to be gay and marry anyone for cash.

One of the girls, Alexandra, said she had organised six previous sham weddings and knew how to deceive immigration officers.

She said: "We have to declare we live together… That's not gonna happen but that's what we have to declare."

She said she could also arrange a "romantic" photo shoot of the undercover reporter and herself, designed to persuade the authorities that they were in a genuine relationship and said "we gonna like, hold hands, hold each other… we have to."

The number of reported sham weddings has trebled in recent years, according to the Home Office.