Fastest route to EU marriage with Hungarian women for 1,800 euros

Men from southern Serbia are paying up to 1,800 euros for marriage in order to obtain a work permit in European Union countries, reports the Bosnian news agency Patria.

N. G. (31) from Novi Sad married a forty-year-old woman residing in Hungary, from the town of Topošvar, this summer so that he could get a work permit for a job in Vienna, where he had been staying illegally since last year. He invested his car, worth 1,600 euros, in a fictitious marriage with a Hungarian bride.

– I heard that a man from Subotica helps our men find a woman from Hungary, so I contacted him. I paid him 200 euros for the mediation, and within about ten days he connected me with Ilona, whom I married. We got married before the city registrar, and that helped me start a legal life in Vienna – says N. G., not hiding that he now fears an investigation launched by the Hungarian prosecutor's office a month ago due to the conclusion of fictitious marriages between Hungarian women and citizens of Serbia.

The investigation was launched because the number of such marriages has significantly increased in the last year and a half. It was established that the husbands are always from the same regions, mostly from southern Serbia, and the brides from border towns in Hungary. Due to the proximity of the border, marriages are concluded in Horgoš, Kanjiža, Senta, Subotica.

A very quick check of personal data and registered place of residence revealed that the marital union was fictitious, because the Serbs moved to Germany and Austria immediately after the wedding. The list of marriages under investigation currently includes those where the grooms are men from Tutin, Sjenica, Kruševac, Leskovac, Zaječar.

24 persons suspected

So far, 24 persons are suspected in the case, who participated as organizers or paid brides in the conclusion of more than 200 false marriages.