BOSTON — The ringleader of an alleged sham marriage ring busted by the feds advertised Massachusetts as a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants looking to easily grab welfare benefits.

The scheme netted the half-dozen defendants over $6 million in profits over more than 10 years, according to U.S. Attorney Leah Foley and charging documents, with marriages costing up to $40,000 each.

All but one of the six co-defendants reside in Fall River: Jennifer Gonzalez, 43; Erica Daniels, 29; Chreise Alejandro, 39; Amara Pugh, 31; and Jaylin Hill, 26; and Jessica Tavares, 31, of Attleboro.

“The alleged mastermind behind this marriage fraud scheme is Jennifer Gonzalez, a United States citizen, who is allegedly responsible for fraudulently arranging sham marriages in Massachusetts for over a decade. Gonzalez allegedly charged between $38,000 and $40,000 per marriage and arranged 18 to 20 sham marriages per year for over 10 years,” Foley said Wednesday. “On the low end, this conspiracy netted her $6 million during the course of the alleged scam.”

In video and audio recordings taken by a cooperating witness, Gonzalez even advertised her illegal business by selling Massachusetts as a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants to come live and fraudulently acquire benefits.

“Massachusetts is the best place for you to be. That is a fact,” Gonzalez said on one recording. “You get health insurance. Um, you get a lot of help as an immigrant here.

“I believe that you can (be) okay, because this state is a sanctuary, like Trump doesn’t like this state because the government from here, the state defends us very much,” she said in another clip.

When asked by the Herald if Massachusetts being sold to illegal immigrants as the “sanctuary” for them to come to creates more challenges in carrying out fraud investigations, Foley said it’s up to state officials to determine how the state is portrayed to potential fraudsters.

“That’s something that the state and their leadership need to decide, whether that is the message they want illegal fraudsters to have and to believe,” she said.

Foley said that Gonzalez even bragged, unknowingly in another recording, that she invested the proceeds from her illegal operation in property and businesses in the Dominican Republic, which she repeatedly referred to as “my country,” in one of the recordings.

“Every time I have a spare dollar, I just invest in new property in my country. That’s what I really do. I like to buy land like I have a lot of land in my country,” Gonzalez said on video recording the feds played. “My kids love my country. My kids loved to vacation down there. So, when they grow up, they’ll each have a land. They’ll have some.”

Beyond lining her own pockets, Foley said Gonzalez also enriched her co-conspirators by allegedly securing payments for them after she collected funds from clients.

Charging documents also accuse Gonzalez of instructing her illegal immigrant clients on establishing the appearance of a legitimate marriage, including acquiring life insurance policies and joint bank accounts while taking pictures depicting their false persona as a married couple. It was a process Gonzalez allegedly informed customers would take three to four months to complete and obtain the required phony paperwork to then apply for legal immigration status.

But Foley says sometime at the end of 2024, following President Trump securing a second term in the White House, Gonzalez put a pause on the operation.

“She was captured on video stating that she stopped doing weddings at the end of 2024 because ‘that’s when Trump was becoming the president.’ Gonzalez stated she married a batch of people and made sure they had their documents,” Foley explained. “She then claimed that she suspended her business in 2025 because immigration was ‘a little harsh.’”

Gonzalez was also captured on other video and audio recordings allegedly directing the printing and signing of a disguised “loan” contract, even accepting a $3,000 cash down payment for arranging a sham marriage for her illegal immigrant clientele. These payments were typically followed by continuing payments of $500 per month to their assigned “spouse” or someone close to them.

The feds say she would tell customers that the contract intentionally avoided mentioning the name of the spouse to avoid “incriminating” them, adding that she designed the fake documents to conceal their fraudulent purpose.

In one instance, Gonzalez allegedly paid Alejandro, Hill and Tavares to enter into sham marriages with illegal immigrants, where they would take staged photographs of the weddings and various social outings of all the phony couples. These were allegedly used to fraudulently apply for immigration status.

Charging documents also show Gonzalez and co-conspirators were collecting Massachusetts SNAP benefits, falsely claiming on their applications to never have been married, despite filing federal immigration petitions on behalf of their sham spouses. Gonzalez allegedly spent over $120,000 in SNAP benefits while she was running the illegal operation and buying property in the Dominican Republic, the feds say.

When asked if the lack of cooperation with the federal government by Massachusetts officials, particularly by Gov. Maura Healey, when it comes to providing information on in-state SNAP recipients, Foley told the Herald more fraud would be uncovered if the state tried working with the feds.

“If the state cooperated with the federal government, I do believe that more fraud would be uncovered just by letting us see the roles and the names of those who are obtaining SNAP benefits. And that goes to ensure that the people who are worthy and need that assistance, that those monies are there for them,” she said.

All six defendants face up to 15 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines, if convicted.

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