Gandul
According to Milan’s deputy mayor Riccardo De Corato, police found 94 such marriages of convenience took place in 2008. Two thirds of these marriages were between Romanian citizens of Roma ethnicity and north-Africans who needed residence permits in Italy. Italians also resort to such marriages to help non-EU citizens get Italian citizenship.
The sums obtained for these “services” range between EUR7,000 and EUR10,000. the phenomenon is on the rise in Milan, where two thirds of marriages between immigrants are now suspicious.
There have even been absurd situations, the website noted, when a 70 year-old Italian woman married a 30 year-old transsexual.