A Scam Wedding & a Multi-Government Agency Failure

Lisa Marie Allen June 6, 2013

250 3 minutes read

Cynthia Es-Sattay never imagined the rabbit hole she would enter when she married Said Es-Sattay.

According to my phone interview with her, Cynthia tells me she has been victimized not only by her Moroccan marriage, but also by every authority available assigned to assist her. Her rabbit hole has been a horrible nightmare. She has tried to receive help for relief from her scam marriage (on Said’s part) from multi government agencies, including Interpol, FBI, and Michigan State and local authorities. So far, none of our U.S. government agencies or the Moroccan Embassy has been willing to assist her. The response is horrifying because there are many American women and women worldwide who are being sucked into the scam every day.

Cynthia was married on Valentine’s Day 2011 in Morocco to Said Es-Sattay. She met him online, and he professed his love for her. She was madly in love. Unfortunately, Said was in love with her money and the idea of becoming a U.S. Citizen–but Cynthia didn’t know this at the time. She travelled to Morocco to marry Said with all the required documents per the Moroccan embassy, including her original birth certificate and her copy of a background check on herself. She even sponsored Said’s Visa. She was in love, blinded to his true motivations.

After their Moroccan wedding, Cynthia returned to her home in Michigan alone, resuming their relationship online via Skype while waiting for Said’s Visa to be granted. They were also both saving up for his airfare and other expenses.

At first, things were great–at least as great as a long-distance relationship can be. But soon Cynthia started noticing little things that she didn’t quite understand. Said began wearing expensive new clothes, like leather jackets and boots. Then Said started buying bigger purchases like expensive music speakers and other items. And despite the fact that she’d been paying for English lessons for over a year, Said’s English was still as poor as ever. Once she started connecting the dots, that’s when her real nightmares began. Said became verbally and mentally abusive via Skype when he was not given whatever he demanded–but the final straw was when Said began “stalking” her daughter via Facebook. Cynthia claims Said opened four Facebook accounts and even posted “pornographic pictures” of her (from their early Skype days) on her daughter’s page.

Cynthia notified Facebook about the photos and received a message back saying the photos “did not violate [Facebook’s] policies”.

as a response from FB telling her the picture did not violate their standards, and their refusal to take it down from her daughter’s FB page. Cynthia says she was horrified, having to explain to friends she did not do this. (I personally perused twenty Facebook requests from Cynthia asking that the photo be removed and saw messages saying the photo wouldn’t be not removed “as it does not violate FB standards.”)

Even Said’s mother appears to have been in on the scam, knowing she would benefit greatly from the prospect of an American bride sending her monthly money and a future path to citizenship and welfare.

Cynthia notified her State and local Police agencies of the Facebook incident. She also notified ICE about the marriage scam, along with the FBI regarding the porn and her marriage. Instead of being taken seriously and/or receiving assistance from any agency, Cynthia was treated like a nut case. Cynthia claims her local Sheriff laughed at her when she contacted him.

Phase two of Cynthia’s nightmare marriage began when Said sold Cynthia’s Social Security number online. He already had her original birth certificate from when they married in Morocco. When she reported this to the IRS, they claimed she made $1,100 in Florida, even though she resides in Michigan. When I spoke to her Cynthia about this, she told me the IRS employee was “very hostile and dismissive” to her, and refused to even see her reports of filing Identity Fraud forms which Cynthia had filed.

Cynthia is not a rich woman. She has two daughter’s under 18 years old and she works as a direct care worker with the elderly. All she wants is for her ‘marriage’ to be over, but divorcing a non-citizen is not an easy task.

Cynthia has written to ICE to withdraw her petition to sponsor Said. She wrote that he scammed her, took over $8000 and is abusing her via International Identity Fraud, and International Pornography. ICE’s response to Cynthia: No information.

She contacted her local television station, ABC 12 news, and was reportedly “laughed at” by the reporter she spoke to.

The hard part for her is the fear of a Fatwah, and retribution. Said has a friend in Morocco who owns an Internet café and she believes they are making a lot of money off of selling her information abroad. Cynthia says he is trying to scam women of all nationalities, via multiple websites.

I have seen all of the paperwork and documentation Cynthia has submitted to all the agencies and authorities who have given her a big brush off on our tax dime. She saved all her moneygram receipts. From what I gather, it is truly shameful.

Currently Said is trying to extort more money from her to get a divorce. Cynthia is barely putting food on the table for her family, and has no money to pay for fees required to retain an attorney to assist her. Said is also still stalking her and her daughter’s via the Internet while living in Morocco, allegedly scamming and making money off his wife’s information and other personal information.

Our massive government is doing nothing to protect her, or her daughters. Cynthia says she prays a lot these days. Her faith is strong, and her current prayer is for the nightmare to be over. If you know of anyone who can assist Cynthia in her situation, please contact me via PolitiChicks.tv.