A Nigerian migrant identified as Jonathan A residing in Germany is exploiting the German immigration law to earn approximately €22,000 in monthly child support for the 24 children he claims to father.
He led an extravagant lifestyle on social media.
Considered poor and “destitute” by German authorities which pays thousands of euros every month to support his so-called 24 children, Mr Jonathan leads a lavish life on Instagram and TikTok where he constantly flaunts his fleet of expensive cars and goes by the username, Mr Cash Money, according to an investigative report by ARD-Kontraste and Rbb24-Recherche.
The German immigration law allows children of its citizens to receive automatic citizenship whether or not they resided in Germany. The law also recognises the mothers and close relatives of these children as citizens.
Mr Jonathan has already racked up the number of his dependents to 94 persons including his 24 children, their mothers and close relations giving them easy access to the foreign citizenship which entitles him to a minimum of $22,500 to care for them. The Nigerian migrant still has two additional applications underway for children he claims to father.
But the report titled “fake fathers” found out that many people like Mr Jonathan receive payments from the so-called mothers, as fees to file for their citizenship, as a gateway to a better life loaded with benefits for their children and opportunity to live legally in Germany.
“Sham paternity is about allowing people who actually have no prospects of staying in Germany to stay in Germany,” Axel Boshamer, an immigration officer told ARD-Kontraste and Rbb24-Recherche.
“These people are willing to pay money for this, usually to the person who takes on the fictitious paternity.”
He stressed that many women from West African countries were taking advantage of the porous law to occupy North Rhine-Westphalia.
Andreas Keppke, who co-wrote the report, told the media that Mr Jonathan alone benefited over a million euros from taxpayers’ money from the German government.
“This man alone costs significantly more for the social security system than €1.5 million per year,” Remix News cited Mr Keppke as saying.
The German immigration law holds no sanction or punishment for persons who lie about fathering children just to obtain citizenship. Lying about paternity was not in any way considered a criminal offence.
Also, the fact that Germany lacked a central civil status register as a measure to protect the data and privacy rights of citizens, has been abused and now caused paternity fraud to thrive.
Certifying entities such as consular officials, registries, youth welfare offices have no way to verify the number of children an applicant has previously acknowledged before paternity is approved for new ones.
The nation’s ministry of justice has reacted swiftly to the report published on February 22 and was already preparing a draft law to deter other paternity abusers.