Two Indian-origin Telugu males in the US have pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit H-1B visa fraud, stated the US Justice Department. Residents of California’s Dublin, Sampath Rajidi and Sreedhar Mada, each 51, hired international nationals and promised them jobs at the University of California, however in actuality, the college had no such necessities. Both Rajidi and Mada face 5 years in jail and a $250,000 positive.
According to paperwork from the US Justice Department launched on Friday, Sampath Rajidi operated two visa-processing firms, S-Team Software Inc. and Uptrend Technologies LLC. As a part of the enterprise fashions of S-Team and Uptrend, Rajidi petitioned for H-1B Speciality Occupation employee visas to acquire international employees for short-term placement with numerous firms. Sreedhar Mada labored as the Chief Information Officer of the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Mada solely had the supervisory authority, and he had no energy to rent H-1B employees for his division with out consulting people in the senior positions.
From June 2020 to January 2023, the duo conspired to submit fraudulent H-1B visa petitions for quite a few beneficiaries. In the submitted petitions, Rajidi would falsely characterize that beneficiaries can be employed in positions with the University of California. Mada used his place as Chief Information Officer and bolstered the false assertion that beneficiaries can be staffed on tasks for the college.
TELUGU DUO HIT CHANCES OF FIRMS PLAYING BY H-1B RULES
The allocation of H-1B visas takes place by means of a lottery system. Rajidi and Mada’s false institutional claims secured approvals that their candidates would have by no means in any other case acquired. This transfer successfully took spots away from candidates at competing corporations who had been enjoying by the guidelines.
According to the court docket paperwork, the duo had been conscious that the positions listed on the petitions didn’t exist.
“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 docket doc reads.
Several federal companies, together with the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, Homeland Security Investigations, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and the USCIS Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, are investigating the case. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney Douglas Harman.
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