A former U.S. Navy recruiter has admitted joining a wedding fraud scam in Jacksonville where he married a Chinese immigrant for money and recruited other sailors to do the same.
Brinio Urena, 28, tried to line up five other Americans to be sham spouses for Chinese immigrants, U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Barksdale was told during an Aug. 28 hearing where Urena pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit marriage fraud.
“Is that true?” Barksdale asked Urena, who replied “um, yes, your honor.” Urena could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.
Three fake weddings were completed before the scam ended in February, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Mesrobian told the judge, reciting facts from a plea agreement that both attorneys and Urena had initialed.
American service members were a preferred demographic for people putting together sham weddings, court documents said.
Urena married a Chinese-born woman in August 2024 and Mesrobian told the judge the serviceman began conspiring with others about getting married for money the following month.
Court records said Navy members were offered $35,000 each for the fake marriages, which are fast-track ways for immigrants to be get permanent legal resident identification known as “green cards” allowing them to stay in the country indefinitely.
The scam fell apart after a key figure in the ring, Navy reservist Raymond Zumba, was arrested for trying to recruit a former shipmate from the Mayport-based destroyer USS Carney for another hustle.
Zumba wanted the ex-shipmate’s civilian wife to help get Chinese immigrants unauthorized base IDs to enter Naval Air Station Jacksonville, where the wife worked in an office that created the IDs.
Base access for the civilian public, particularly non-citizens from a rival nation like China, is normally carefully limited.
Urena also served on the Carney years ago, when Zumba was on active duty.
Zumba pleaded guilty in July to bribery of a public official for offering $3,500 to get IDs at Jacksonville NAS for a couple he said were his wife’s Chinese-born parents, although he acknowledged his marriage was also a sham done only for payment.
Zumba wasn’t mentioned by name when Urena pleaded guilty, but charges against him in a document called a case information referenced his dealings with six people labeled Conspirators A through F. Facts in that document align Conspirator A with facts from Zumba’s case, including the date that each met with a service member and the member’s wife, who were secretly cooperating with federal investigators.
Prosecutors charged that Urena’s Conspirator A outlined a schedule for payments when another conspirator was considering entering a fake marriage.
The American conspirator would get $10,000 up front forgetting married, then another $20,000 when the immigrant spouse received a green card, court records said. The last $5,000 of the $35,000 payment would come when the sham couple divorced, leaving the green-card holder free to start life fresh in America.
Urena is the first person charged in fallout from Zumba’s case, but Mesrobian said that an active investigation is still underway.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville Navy vet pleads to role in cash-for-marriage sham weddings with immigrants
Reporting by Steve Patterson, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
