The Manhattan District Attorney in the United States is investigating a scam in which women, that it calls "career brides", married dozens of men for money. The brides earned about one thousand dollars for each marriage and the grooms got Green Cards - or the right to life and work in the US indefinitely. This report from Jane Stanley:

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One of the "career brides" applied for [?] marriage licences over nineteen years - her [?] came from as far afield as Peru, [?], Pakistan and the Dominican Republic. She's been [?] with perjury and fraud - as she claimed on her [?] that she'd never been married before.

It's not [?] how many of the licences resulted in matrimony, nor how many men got [?] for their money. This allowed them to stay [?] in the United States, to claim benefits like Social Security and to [?] to become citizens.

The [?] District Attorney says he [?] as many as twelve women were [?] in the scam, [?] the idea of selling themselves as brides by word of mouth. So far [?] have been brought against of them - for [?] for nearly fifty licences between them. One woman [?] forgot that she had had [?] Nigerian [?] when she too claimed to be a spinster.

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