A Portuguese ‘bride’ who entered a string of sham marriages with foreign nationals for cash has been jailed for four years.

Tania Sofia de Paiva Aniceto, from Barking, wed her grooms in Brent, Lewisham, Southwark and Rochdale using false Portuguese identity documents.

Basildon Crown Court heard the 25-year-old’s four ‘husbands’ were from Ghana, Pakistan and Nigeria and all married her between May 2010 and June 2012.

She was arrested after specialist Home Office investigators became suspicious of multiple applications from foreign nationals seeking leave to remain in the UK.

All named Aniceto or her alias Sandra Monteiro as their EEA national partner.

She was charged with five counts of facilitation and four of bigamy.

Aniceto initially admitted one charge of facilitation and one of bigamy but denied the remaining charges.

However she later pleaded guilty to all the charges and was jailed last week.

Mark Rickard, from the Home Office’s Immigration Enforcement Criminal and Financial Investigations team, said: “Ancieto thought she had come up with a foolproof way of breaching UK immigration laws. She was wrong, and as a result is now behind bars.

“The message to anyone involved in this sort of criminality is clear. The Home Office has dedicated teams with the resource and expertise to catch up with you and bring you to justice.”

The hunt is now on to find Aniceto’s ‘grooms’.

They face arrest and deportation if found to have no leave to remain in the UK.