A major marriage fraud scheme involving U.S. service members and Chinese nationals resulted in 11 arrests earlier this year. The incident is the latest in a series of increasingly brazen efforts by foreign nationals to obtain access to restricted U.S. military sites. However, it is particularly notable for the defendants’ efforts to secure fraudulently issued Common Access Cards, allowing Chinese nationals unfettered access to a wide range of U.S. government facilities.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the sham marriages took place in multiple states, including Florida, New York, Connecticut, and Nevada, and included staged photographs for the benefit of immigration authorities. One service member, a Navy reservist, has already been convicted of bribing a source and the source’s spouse, who works in the personnel office of a Florida military base, to issue real, but unauthorized, Department of War identification cards.
Recent developments in the case suggest that the motive of involved service members was purely financial – they stood to make $35,000 for their troubles – and that there is no evidence of any espionage nexus. The purported rationale for the foreign national “spouses” desiring Common Access Cards was so that they could shop at discounted rates in Base Exchanges – an explanation that investigators were evidently unable to disprove. Yet even if this was a purely financial crime, the potential for national security implications remains in such cases, and this is far from the first.
For example, a U.S. Army sergeant was charged in 2020 with a similar marriage fraud scheme that spanned six years. He received a vehicle for payment in his role in the scheme, plus military BAH allowances to which he was not entitled: family separation hardship, additional housing allowance, and additional moving expenses.
In 2021, a female U.S. Army soldier stationed at Fort Bragg was convicted of marriage fraud, discharged from the military, and ordered deported back to her native Azerbaijan after she also began fraudulently claiming BAH allowances at the married rate.
And in an older case of similarly significant scope, nine current and former Navy sailors were arrested and charged in 2006 with marriage fraud that was also apparently motivated by the desire for increased BAH allowances.
As the prior cases evidence, this scourge is nothing new. However, the national security implications of marriage fraud are taking on new urgency within a broader context of an increasingly aggressive and emboldened China. Dozens of incidents of “lost” Chinese tourists showing up at U.S. military bases in recent years, coupled with other high-profile cases of “gate-crashing” – like Chinese nationals discovered scuba diving with camera equipment in waters near a sensitive military location in Florida – are setting off alarm bells in the national security community, as I previously reported here.
Whether attempts to gain authorized access to bases via fraudulent marriages and Common Access Card issuance are the latest iteration of a coordinated espionage effort or simply isolated incidents of greed remains to be seen.
What is clear, however, is that military service members are at an increased susceptibility to such schemes given the financial incentives available to them that aren’t available for fraudulent marriages in the civilian world.
The modest amount of those incentives relative to the risk was evidently inadequate deterrent to the defendants in each of the cited cases. As the judge in the most recent case noted, these defendants were willing to commit a felony – and risk prison, dishonorable discharge, and the destruction of their lives – for $35,000.
This article is intended as general information only and should not be construed as legal advice. Although the information is believed to be accurate as of the publication date, no guarantee or warranty is offered or implied. Laws and government policies are subject to change, and the information provided herein may not provide a complete or current analysis of the topic or other pertinent considerations. Consult an attorney regarding your specific situation.
