Three people connected to the San Bernardino shooter were arrested on Thursday by the FBI over allegations of a marriage fraud conspiracy. The arrests were the latest update in the FBI's spreading investigation into the attacks done by Syed Rizwan Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik. The two died while having a gun battle with law officers hours after the killings.
Arrested were Mariya Chernykh, Tatiana Farook and brother-in-law Syed Raheel Farook whose younger brother was the one being killed and responsible for the San Bernardino shootings killing 14 people in December at the Inland Regional Center in December. He is also owner of the iPhone that became a controversy between Apple and FBI over encryption, told the Los Angeles Times.
"Last year's tragedy in San Bernardino showed yet again how our nation's legal immigration system can be subverted and exploited," Joseph Macias, the head of Homeland Security Investigations in Los Angeles, said in a statement.
On Wednesday, the Central District of California issued five counts of indictment against the three arrested people who all live in California.
Chernykh married former neighbor Enrique Marquez in November 2014 who provided Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife weapons and other stuff used in the San Bernardino shootings. Marquez was already charged with offenses related to terrorism and marriage fraud and admitted to entering to "sham marriage" with Chernykh where he receives $200 a month as part of the agreement allowing Chernykh to stay in the US, according to a report from the abc News.
The charge also indicates that Syed Raheel and Tatiana Farook took part in the conspiracy as being witnesses to the union of her sister and Marquez by making a joint account along with the backdated lease to make it seem as if all four of them is living together.
What really happened was Marquez is living next door to the house with his mother where Farook brothers grew up while his estranged wife Chernykh also lives in a different city with her boyfriend who is also the father of her child, as reported by Chicago Tribune.
The family of Syed Rizwan Farook stood their ground of having no link or knowledge about the scheme. Rafia Farook, his mother live with the couple and their newborn daughter near San Bernardino. She claimed she saw no indication that her son and daughter-in-law were planning such a murderous plot.
