Marriage Fraud and Murder, This Time in Spades

By David North on December 18, 2015

It turns out that there is an element of immigration-related marriage fraud in the San Bernardino massacre, a tragic linkage (marriage fraud and murder) that I have noted before.

Gunman Syed Rizwan Farook's neighbor and long-time friend, Enrique Marquez, Jr. — the person who bought the guns for the killers — had a sham marriage with the sister of Farook's sister-in-law, according to the papers this morning. Marquez was paid $200 a month for this arrangement, but who paid him is not reported.

The chart below outlines the all-in-the-extended-family relationships.

Gun buyer Enrique Marquez Jr.

fraudulently married

Mariya Chernykh

who is the sister of

Tatiana Chernykh

who is married to

Syed Raheel Farook

the brother/brother-in-law of

terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik


So, along with other failings, the immigration system did not sense the counterfeit nature of the Marquez-Chernykh marriage until the day after the shooting, when the couple did not show up for a scheduled USCIS interview, leading to a denial of the green card petition. She had been a J-1 exchange visitor, perhaps having fallen into illegal status, prior to her "marriage" to Marquez.

Given the strongly Islamic nature of the terrorists and Marquez's own conversion to Islam, and given the number of Muslims in Russia, it is probably safe to conclude that the sisters Chernykh are of the same faith.

Marquez, who is now in custody, seems to have been under Farook's spell, having converted to Islam for him, having bought guns and gunpowder for him, and, it is now known, having agreed to a sham marriage to give legal status to the sister of Farook's sister-in-law.