A corrupt legal adviser who made a fortune arranging thousands of sham marriages for illegal immigrants has been jailed for nine years.

Cenk Guclu, 41, of Links Side near Grange Park, worked with colleagues in Souleiman GA Solictors in Palmers Green to provide fake tenancy arrangements and false documents to allow the marriages to go ahead.

He was sentenced at the Old Bailey yesterday after being found guilty of conspiracy to facilitate the commission of a breach of UK immigration law and money laundering.

He worked with law specialist Tevfick Souleiman, of Hertfordshire, and fellow advisers Zafer Altinbas, of Islington, and Farruh Kosimov, of no fixed abode, to arrange for hundreds of people to be flown from Europe to fraudulently marry people from outside the EU.

Detectives found that the four had conducted up to 8,000 immigration applications between 2004 and 2011, with up to £14,000 being charged for each marriage.

The men - who made millions of pounds from the crime - were arrested in July 2011 following an investigation from the Metropolitan Police Service central task force, the UK Border Agency and HM Revenue and Customs.

Altinbas, 38, was jailed for six years and nine months after pleading guilty to money laundering.

Kosimov, 29, was sentenced to nine years when found guilty of conspiracy to facilitate the commission of a breach of UK immigration law and money laundering.

Ringleader Souleiman, 39, was jailed for ten-and-a-half years after being found guilty of conspiracy to facilitate the commission of a breach of UK immigration law and money laundering.

Detectives are looking for Kosimov, who absconded while on bail.

Detective Superintendent Caroline Barker, from the MPS central task force, said: "This firm was corrupt to the core; the individuals involved knowingly and fraudulently sought to get rich by setting up thousands of sham marriages so that people could stay in the UK illegally, and then going on to defraud HMRC by faking payments to non-existent employees.

“A financial investigation is now underway to look at confiscating any assets they have made from their criminality.”