Two Telugu men of Indian origin residing in the US have pleaded guilty to committing H-1B visa fraud. According to the US Justice Department, Sampath Rajidi and Sreedhar Mada, both 51 years old, hired overseas workers, assuring them positions at the University of California. Rajidi and Mada each faces a potential five-year prison sentence along with a $250,000 penalty.
They fabricated ‘phantom' job postings, misleading applicants that international workers would be hired by the University of California, even though these roles were non-existent. Once visas were cleared, the workers were reportedly diverted to private clients.
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Documents released by the US Justice Department on Friday revealed that Rajidi ran two visa-processing firms, S-Team Software Inc. and Uptrend Technologies LLC. Through these firms, he applied for H-1B Speciality Occupation visas to hire foreign employees for temporary assignments with the Universiety of California.
Mada was Chief Information Officer at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Mada's role was strictly supervisory, with no authority to hire H-1B workers for his department without prior consultation with higher-ups.
H-1B visas are allocated through a lottery system. Rajidi and Mada's false institutional claims helped them secure an advantage that their applicants would never have got otherwise. This deprived applicants at rival companies who were following the rulebook.
Multiple federal agencies, including 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 probing the matter. The case is being led by Assistant US Attorney Douglas Harman.
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