Government is set to outlaw marriages of convenience after reports drug dealers are setting up base on the island by wedding locals.

Home Affairs Minister Paula Cox said the legislation could come in the next parliamentary session, but admitted the change could lead to a "lawyers' feast" as the new crime would be difficult to prove.

She said there have been reports of foreigners marrying homeless and mentally ill people to stay on the Island while in other cases, locals had been paid to enter into wedlock.

Recently, the Department of Immigration refused four visitors extensions to people seeking to remain in Bermuda to marry. Most were trying to marry people 20 years younger than themselves.

Immigration have also come across two "self-declared" homosexuals who have married for immigration purposes.

One immigration department source said that a non-Bermudian spouse who had married a homeless man over a weekend was in the department on the Monday asking how she could get her kids into the country.

Minister Paula Cox said yesterday it was a hot issue for locals, but she could not supply figures on how many marriages were bogus.

"We know that is happening, but we don't have the proof. There seems to be a real increase, even in the last couple of months, it's extraordinary. But there's no machinery for stopping it.

"There's a link to crime in some cases. People are coming here to foster crime - the drug aspect."

Already, immigration officers have more discretion on whether to issue a spouse's letter which allows the non-Bermudian partner permission to seek work.

Applicants will now go through more rigorous questioning on their marriages.

"Sometimes people don't even know their partner's age or name," said Ms Cox. "They don't know the things they should know if it's a genuine marriage."

In order to get the letter, the couple must prove that they are living together as man and wife.

Those who fail that test will have to reapply for a work permit every year like other guest workers.

Ms Cox admitted that by this time the "horse was already out of the stable".

She said uncovering phoney marriages was impossible if the couple were living together and she said even if they were living apart the couple could argue that it was a temporary split.

"It's a challenge to see what we can do to tighten things up."

"We will make it a criminal offence. Even then it will be a lawyer's feast because you will have a heavy onus of proof."

She said the new law is set to require proposed marriage between foreigner and locals be printed in the paper, in the same way that all-foreigner marriages are required to do, in order to put the spotlight on the frauds.

Ms Cox, who herself is married to a non-Bermudian, admitted it was an inconvenience for genuine lovers but the ends justified the means.

"People see Bermuda as an opportunity and they are coming to Bermuda and, where there's an element of greed, they are transacting.

"It is difficult to prove. Once they have married the only thing you can do is impede them by not giving them the full spouse's letter."

She said the Registrar General, who gives marriage licences, was working closely with Immigration on the matter.

She said they had also met with ministers of the church who got first wind of phoney unions.

"We have intercepted and stopped a few of these marriages."

She added: "We have to be conscious from a human rights and constitutional point of view that there's only so far you can get into people's personal life."

She said concerned family members were blowing the whistle to stop retarded relatives getting hitched to immigration cheats.

"Family members can lodge a caveat down at the court registry."

She encouraged Bermudians to call Immigration with hard facts to help enforcement officers with their job rather than just providing anecdotal evidence.