SEVEN members of a Bolton gang who organised sham weddings for illegal immigrants have been jailed.

The Eastern European group's ringleader, Vladimir Murko, was sentenced to more than five years for his part in the scam.

The group of three men and four women staged 15 bogus marriages involving illegal Nigerian, Pakistani and Syrian immigrants from October 2006.

The immigrants handed over £1,500 each for the weddings, so they could obtain a National Insurance number and stay in Britain.

Murko, aged 37, ran up casino debts of £60,000 despite not having a legitimate source of income, a court heard.

He was sentenced to 44 months for conspiring to assist illegal immigration, and 18 months for possessing a false identity document, to run consecutively.

Judge Martin Steiger, sitting at Manchester Crown Court, said: "Not only did this conspiracy pose a risk to immigration control, it potentially posed a threat to security as well.

"I do not accept that he (Murko) was a hapless marionette being manipulated by an unseen puppet master.

"If it was up to me to decide you would be deported to your home country and never allowed back."

Murko and his friends and relatives acted as brides or grooms or as witnesses to the proceedings, and many of the marriages, which took place across the North West — including Bolton register Office — and in London, were bigamous.

Murko and his partner, Aneta Belova, aged 26, both of Stansfield Close, Tonge Fold; his brother Roman Murko, aged 32, and partner Nela Ginova, aged 23, both of Church Avenue, Daubhill; and his friends Pavel More, aged 43, of Southfield Street, Burnden, Petra Cinova, aged 26, of Galloway Street, Liverpool, and Monika Lakatosova, aged 30, of Charlesworth Avenue, Great Lever, all pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to conspiring to assist illegal immigration.

The defendants — six Czechs and one Slovak — all had the right to live in the UK as European citizens.

Pavel More and Roman Murko were given a 26-month jail sentence for the conspiracy charge, with 15 months extra for Murko for bigamy, to run concurrently.

The four women were all jailed for 16 months for the conspiracy charge, with 12 months for bigamy, to run concurrently.

Fake addresses and other false documents were provided to authenticate the "relationships".

The gang's activities were eventually discovered by the UK Border Agency in conjunction with the North West Immigration Crime Team and police raided a number of addresses in Bolton, Manchester and Liverpool in February.

Adrian Dugdale, from the Greater Manchester Crown Prosecution Service, said the group knew exactly what they were doing and that it was "unlawful."

He said: "We hope that these convictions will act as a warning to those unscrupulous enough to take advantage of people's desperation to remain in the UK."