Costa Ricans are offered as little as $175 to marry Chinese migrants so they could get residency in the Central American country.
“Who wants to earn some money?”
It was just a simple question, but it was enough to convince María (not her real name) to enter into what seemed like a simple deal.
A young woman offered the 46-year-old Costa Rican woman 100,000 colones ($175; £130) to get married to a Chinese man so that he could get residency in the Central American country.
At the time, María lived in one of the poorest areas of the Costa Rican capital, San José, and was desperate for help to feed her family.
“We did not have anything to eat,” María says of her decision to say yes.
‘They look for prey’
María’s neighbourhood is not known for its safety. “Around here, the less you know, the longer you live,” a resident warns.
What happened to María is not uncommon here. A lawyer or middleman arrives looking for the most desperate and convinces them to marry a foreigner they have not even met.
“They look for prey… People here are in dire need. However little they offer, people accept without giving it a second thought,” another resident explains.
María got married without even leaving her neighbourhood. She just got into a car, where she signed a marriage certificate and received her 100,000 colones in exchange on the understanding that she would get divorced as soon as possible.
READ: Atiku Abubakar creating jobs with Chicken Cottage
She says that was all the explanation she was given. “They just showed me a photo of the Chinese guy and told me: ‘Miss María, you are getting married to this Chinese man’,” she explains.
In María’s case, the middleman kept up his side of the bargain and came back with the divorce papers some time later.
A few years later, she married another Chinese citizen for money, as did some of her daughters, and her partner, too.
Black market
The government says María’s case is part of a serious problem, the extent of which is hard to measure.
Deputy state prosecutor Guillermo Fernández says his office is currently investigating more than 1,000 cases of suspected sham marriages.
Mr Fernández says he fears that this number is “just the tip of the iceberg”.
The director of Costa Rica’s office for migration, Gisela Yockchen, speaks of a “black market” for sham marriages run by Costa Rican criminal networks.
She says that these “mafias” operate in different ways, with some going as far as stealing people’s identities to marry them off to foreigners looking for legal residency or even nationality through marriage.
The first the victims of this particular scam know about it is when they find out to their shock that their civil status has changed from “single” to “married” without their knowledge or consent.
In other cases, those who entered knowingly into a sham marriage in exchange for money find that the divorce promised to them never comes through, leaving them married to a partner they have never met and do not even know how to track down.
Ms Yockchen says that the foreigners are often also unwitting victims.
An official document seen by the BBC suggests that a Chinese national – who did not speak any Spanish – signed a document that he thought was an application for residency when it was in fact a marriage certificate.
Stricter rules
Ms Yockchen says that a stricter immigration law introduced in 2010 has gone some way towards tackling the problem. Under that law, notaries and others involved in arranging fake marriages can be sentenced to up to five years in prison.
Since then, permanent residency has no longer automatically been granted to foreigners just for being married to a Costa Rican citizen.
Foreign citizens can still apply for residency permits after marrying a Costa Rican partner and having had their marriage certificate registered at the Civil Registry, but the permit they are given is restricted to a year.
It can be renewed annually if the couple provides evidence that they are cohabiting as husband and wife. After three years, the foreign partner can apply for permanent residency.
‘Gateway to the US’
Most of the Chinese who have migrated to Costa Rica come from the southern province of Guangdong, Uned researcher Alonso Rodríguez says.
Many choose Costa Rica because of its immigration-friendly policies and its reputation for being a relatively safe country.
There is also a long history of immigration to Costa Rica, with the first Chinese arriving in 1855 to work as field hands.
But the final destination of today’s Chinese migrants is not necessarily Costa Rica. “For many, it is a gateway to the US,” Mr Rodríguez explains.
If they stay in Costa Rica, they often open and run small businesses. “They adapt very well to
the way of life here,” he says.
