As far as I know it was a scheme that was cooked up by his wife's side of the family. I think he probably had no idea what he was getting into either. I know I had no idea how financially lucrative or risky these sort of schemes could be until I started looking into it myself. I have another friend who is South American and who actually had relatives who pulled it off and he talked about how the "couple" would have private investigators following them around to make sure they were a legit item.
Actually this is bringing back more memories too. I have another friend who actually did almost got caught in the trap. He was seeing this Hungarian girl who he became totally smittened by and was set to marry...until he told a guy at his boxing gym who is Hungarian also and the guy basically gave him a straight up intervention telling him that the girl was using him for a green card and that he had to be on guard with girls from his country. He broke up the marriage at the last minute and even moved out of the state he was living at the moment to get away from her...and the girl still managed to track him down and showed up at his front step! He later found out that the girl was already the process of moving a lot of her family over and they were already selling their old properties in Hungary in preparation for the move and that apparently her parents had actually told her to basically have sex with him as much as possible to basically cloud his mind (which he took advantage of in many situations such as banging her at the bathroom of a Wendy's while people were standing outside and giggling. His exact words: "I made her my whore"). The whole family was relying on her as their meal ticket to the west and my friend was claiming that he heard that the family was beating the shit out of her after the scheme fell apart.
Lots of the above story was pretty outlandish and I only have his word so who knows maybe he embellished some stuff to make a good story. But still, if even half of it was true it would definitely be enough for me to be wary of seeking out a LTR in these parts of the world. I'm not saying don't do it but just be aware of the risks and to vet with the utmost discrimination.
Actually this is bringing back more memories too. I have another friend who actually did almost got caught in the trap. He was seeing this Hungarian girl who he became totally smittened by and was set to marry...until he told a guy at his boxing gym who is Hungarian also and the guy basically gave him a straight up intervention telling him that the girl was using him for a green card and that he had to be on guard with girls from his country. He broke up the marriage at the last minute and even moved out of the state he was living at the moment to get away from her...and the girl still managed to track him down and showed up at his front step! He later found out that the girl was already the process of moving a lot of her family over and they were already selling their old properties in Hungary in preparation for the move and that apparently her parents had actually told her to basically have sex with him as much as possible to basically cloud his mind (which he took advantage of in many situations such as banging her at the bathroom of a Wendy's while people were standing outside and giggling. His exact words: "I made her my whore"). The whole family was relying on her as their meal ticket to the west and my friend was claiming that he heard that the family was beating the shit out of her after the scheme fell apart.
Lots of the above story was pretty outlandish and I only have his word so who knows maybe he embellished some stuff to make a good story. But still, if even half of it was true it would definitely be enough for me to be wary of seeking out a LTR in these parts of the world. I'm not saying don't do it but just be aware of the risks and to vet with the utmost discrimination.