A HOUSE in Basingstoke was searched after immigration officers halted a suspected sham marriage.

Officers arrested a French woman and a man from Cameroon at the Registry Office in Winchester at 10am on Friday, February 28, after hearing that the marriage was a hoax.

Two more people were arrested at an address in High Street and officers found cash that was seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

They also searched a house in Augustus Drive, Winklebury, the former home of Devine Atalako Abanda, the ‘groom’ in the suspected sham marriage.

The 26-year-old Cameroonian national, of Hillards Road, Uxbridge, has been charged with one count of conspiracy to do an act to facilitate the commission of a breach of UK immigration law by a non-EU person.

Armand Pacombe Djedje, a 29-year-old man from the Ivory Coast, of Evelyn Street London, and Belgian citizen Olivier Attie, 30, of Guibal Road, London, have been charged with the same offence.

Olivia Godefroy, 21, of Grove Street, London, was also charged with the same offence, as well as bigamy and doing an act to facilitate the commission of a breach of UK immigration law by a no-EU person.

All four defendants appeared at Aldershot Magistrates’ Court on Saturday, March 1 and were remanded in custody to appear at Winchester Crown Court on March 26.