Cypriot authorities vowed to crack down on fake marriage scams involving their country, after police on Wednesday arrested 11 Romanian women who had flown to the Island to marry non-EU citizens in exchange for money so the grooms can get legal residence in the EU.Cypriot authorities in collaboration with Interpol on Wednesday arrested 11 Romanian women on their arrival at Larnaka airport in Cyprus. The women had flown to the island to marry non-EU citizens they had not met in exchange for money, so that the foreign nationals could gain legal residence and freedom of movement in the European Union, Romanian media reported on Thursday, quoting Cyprus portal Sigma.­

Cypriot police said the women admitted to receiving bribes of between 700 and 1,000 euros to travel there and enter a fake marriage. Ten of the arrested women have been deported to their home country while the tenth is still being investigated as the suspected mastermind of the scheme.

Sigma reported that intermediaries target poor women in EU Member States in need of money, offering them cash to marry citizens of non-EU countries looking to settle in the EU. Cyprus joined the EU in 2004.

The fake brides can sometimes get up to 10,000 euros for agreeing to these sham marriages, although part of the money might well have to go to intermediaries involved in the scheme.

According to Sigma, the women commit to stay married for at least two years, during which time they need to be available at all times in case police check on the authenticity of their union.

Romania, which joined the EU in 2007 and is its poorest member, along with Bulgaria, is a popular field of recruitment for these rings.

In an interview with Cypriot publication Kathimerini, Cyprus Interior Minister Nikos Nouris announced changes to the country’s laws aimed at preventing such fake marriages.

“We have received serious warnings from European government, especially from Romania, a country from which it seems the brides who marry citizens from, Asia and Africa mostly, come,” Nouris was quoted as sayingì

Portugal is another EU country that has raised the alarm over the recruitment of its female citizens by gangs that organise fake marriages in Cyprus.

According to the Cypriot press, the beneficiaries of these fraudulent marriages usually move on from Cyprus to other EU countries. The fake brides enlisted for these schemes, meanwhile, are often already married in their countries of origin.