New Delhi: Two men of Indian origin have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit H-1B visa fraud, said the US Department of Justice.
Telugu Sampath Rajidi and Sreedhar Mada, both 51 and residents of California’s Dublin, hired foreign nationals and promised them jobs at the University of California, even though the university had no such requirements.
Sampath and Sreedhar both face five years in prison and $250,000 fine.
As per documents from the US Justice Department released recently, Sampath and Sreedhar operated two visa-processing companies — S-Team Software Inc. and Uptrend Technologies LLC.
The modus operandi of the duo was Sampath petitioning for H-1B Speciality Occupation worker visas to obtain foreign workers for temporary placement with various companies.
Sreedhar, who worked as Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources, had supervisory authority only, with no power to hire H-1B workers for his department without consulting higher-ups.
It was found that the duo submitted fraudulent H-1B visa petitions for numerous beneficiaries from June 2020 to January 2023.
In the petitions, Sampath used to falsely represent that beneficiaries would be employed in positions with the University of California. On the other hand, Sreedhar used his position as CIO to bolster the false assertion that beneficiaries would be staffed on projects for the university.
H-1B visa allocation in the US takes place through a lottery system. Sampath and Sreedhar’s false claims secured approvals that their candidates would never otherwise have received. Their fraudulent move deprived many eligible applicants at competing firms who were playing by the rules.
“The beneficiaries did not work on projects at the University of California, and the defendants instead undertook to market these beneficiaries to other clients, having already secured H1-B visas based on the false assertions. They submitted false information knowing such information was material to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) decisions in granting visas. As a result of their conspiracy, Rajidi and Mada gained an unfair advantage over other firms and depleted the pool of H-1B visas available to competing firms,” the court document reads.
The case is being investigated by several federal agencies, such as US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, Homeland Security Investigations, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and the USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate.
Assistant US Attorney Douglas Harman is the prosecutor in the case.
This is not the first time that Indians have been ‘caught’.
In March, 11 Indian nationals were charged with visa fraud conspiracy in Boston in connection with a conspiracy to carry out staged armed robberies of convenience stores for the purpose of allowing store clerks to falsely claim they were crime victims on immigration applications.
