LONDON – On Tuesday a British judge overturned 180 divorces awarded to Italian couples who fraudulently claimed residence in the UK.

Divorce legislation in Italy requires a legal separation of three years, whereas requirements in other EU member states are far more lenient. Italian residents may only petition for divorce under the legislation of other EU countries, however, if they can claim habitual residence.

The scam was uncovered in 2012, when a court clerk in Burnley noticed that two divorce petitions by Italian couples had been registered under the same address. Upon further investigation it was discovered that 179 divorces had been registered at the same address, which in fact was for a postal box on a commercial property in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The orchestrators of the scam had filed the divorce petitions across the UK in different county courts to avoid detection.

Family law expert and judge Sir James Munby called the scheme “a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice on an almost industrial scale,” adding, “Given the dimensions of the mailbox it is clear that that not even a single individual, however small, could possibly reside in it.

A large part of the overturned divorce decrees were still in the earlier stages, however in 91 of the cases a decree absolute had already been granted, legally ending the marriage. Sir Munby, however, declared all 180 divorces void as having been procured fraudulently.