A top notch man was arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and for inducing aliens to come to the United States falsely obtained H-1B visas.
According to court documents, Ashish Sawhney, 48, allegedly used four companies to set up the improper submission of fraudulent applications for H-1B speciality-occupation work visas.
Hari Karne, 32, confessed before Federal Judge Kevin McNulty in Newark, New Jersey on Friday that he conspired to obstruct the investigation into a scheme to get fraudulent visas for foreign workers and falsify salary information.
The prosecution said that Karne, who is from Hyderabad, worked as an immigration manager with SCM Private Limited in India, which had service agreements with SCM Data and MMC System that in turn provide information technology consultants to US companies. The six-count indictment identifies Sawhney as the director or registered agent for Value Consulting, LLC, Value Software Products, Inc. (formerly known as Value Consulting, Inc.), Business Pointers, Inc., and E-Train ERP, Inc., each of which had offices located in the Eastern District of Virginia and purported to provide information technology staffing and software development services for commercial clients in the United States.
According to prosecutors," To meet the H-1B requirements, they showed them as full-time salaried employees of their companies. However, they were not paid by the outsourcing companies and collected salaries only from the companies they were sent to work in.The conspirators recruited students and recent graduates and sponsored them for H-1B visas meant for people with required qualification."
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Federal prosecutors further said that One employee, identified only as "Individual 1" in court papers, was not paid for some time around January last year. Since the outsourcing companies had to show that it paid H-1B visa-holders full-time, Karne asked "Individual 1" to pay cash to the outsourcers from the person's earnings from the company to which the person was outsourced.
If alleged person found guilty, he could face a maximum sentence of ten years in jail, but often the actual penalties are less.