Mastermind behind massive marriage fraud conspiracy sentenced to 10 years in prison following investigation by HSI Houston, federal partners

HOUSTON — The mastermind behind one of the largest marriage fraud conspiracies in U.S. history was sentenced to 10 years in prison Oct. 27, in the Southern District of Texas, following an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Houston, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).

Ashley Yen Nguyen, 58, was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release and pay $334,605 in fines. Nguyen pleaded guilty to the charges Nov. 5, 2020. As part of her plea, she admitted to conspiring to engage in marriage fraud, mail fraud, immigration fraud, money laundering and making false statements in a tax return.

“As experts in investigating all types of financial crimes, [IRS-CI] special agents worked with our law enforcement partners and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to put a stop to this criminal network – not just from committing tax fraud and money laundering – but from also circumventing our nation’s immigration laws,” said Special Agent in Charge Ramsey E. Covington, IRS-CI Houston. “We leverage our ability to follow the money trail in order to bring down criminal conspiracies like the one Nguyen led.”

Nguyen ran the marriage fraud scheme out of the Southwest Houston-area, but had associates operating across Texas and in Vietnam. The organization was responsible for organizing well over 500 sham marriages in exchange for substantial amounts of money solely for the alien beneficiary to obtain immigration benefits. The criminal organization was able to generate more than $15 million in illicit proceeds from the scheme.

At the hearing, the court heard that Vietnamese nationals would give Nguyen’s group $50,000 to $70,000 to marry a wife or husband in the U.S. to fraudulently obtain lawful permanent resident status.

Nguyen issued routine payments of approximately $200 to those U.S. citizens who acted as recruiters in the fake immigration proceedings. Nguyen also promised the U.S. citizens who participated as spouses between $15,000 and $20,000 in installments, although few ever came close to getting the full amount.

Nguyen used well over a dozen recruiters of U.S. citizen spouses in the Houston vicinity and advertised via social media about the scheme in Vietnam. Many of the U.S. citizens had extensive criminal histories, gang associations and crippling drug additions.

During her plea, Nguyen acknowledged the fake spouses did not live together and did not intend to live together, contrary to documents and statements submitted to federal authorities. At her instruction, the spouses only met briefly, immediately before they obtained their marriage license or not at all. To prepare the fake spouses for their interviews with immigration officials, Nguyen and her criminal organization provided fabricated facts to the fake spouses to study and recite details to falsely establish the pair was living together and familiar with each other’s daily habits.

The court ruled that Nguyen utilized mass-marketing to facilitate the scheme by advertising it through recruiters and Facebook. Nguyen had also claimed to be an attorney who had contacts within USCIS to make the scheme appear legitimate. Nguyen often provided a fake wedding album to help people obtain legal permanent resident status.

Nguyen purchased multiple residences with the criminal proceeds. She used them as part of the scheme to either collect, distribute the proceeds and/or stage some of the rooms for the times when authorities indicated they would conduct a site inspection. The rooms were setup to appear as if they belonged to the fake spouses.

Nguyen herself also entered the United States through a sham marriage.

Nguyen will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adam Laurence Goldman, Michael Day and Kate Suh are prosecuting the case.

HSI is the principal investigative arm of DHS, responsible for investigating transnational crime and threats, specifically those criminal organizations that exploit the global infrastructure through which international trade, travel, and finance move. HSI’s workforce of over 10,400 employees consists of more than 6,800 special agents assigned to 225 cities throughout the United States, and 93 overseas locations in 56 countries. HSI’s international presence represents DHS’s largest investigative law enforcement presence abroad and one of the largest international footprints in U.S. law enforcement.

For more news and information on HSI’s efforts to aggressively investigate document and benefit fraud in Southeast Texas follow us on Twitter @HSIHouston.