The U.S. Department of Justice has announced that two Telugu men of Indian descent have pleaded guilty to orchestrating a scheme involving H-1B visa fraud. Sampath Rajidi and Sridhar Mada, both 51 and residing in Dublin, California, were accused of hiring foreign nationals and promising them jobs at the University of California, despite the university having no need for such employees. Both Rajidi and Mada face potential sentences of five years in prison along with a fine of $250,000. According to court documents, Rajidi operated two visa-processing companies: S-Team Software Inc. and Uptrend Technologies LLC. Under the business model of S-Team and Uptrend, Rajidi applied for H-1B specialty occupation worker visas to bring foreign employees for temporary work at various companies.
Sridhar Mada served as the Chief Information Officer in the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of California. However, Mada only had supervisory authority and was not permitted to hire H-1B employees for his department without consulting senior officials.
Fraudulent Applications Submitted
Between June 2020 and January 2023, the duo conspired to submit fraudulent H-1B visa applications for multiple beneficiaries. In the applications submitted, Rajidi falsely claimed that the beneficiaries would be appointed to positions at the University of California. Mada leveraged his position as Chief Information Officer to further substantiate the false claims that the beneficiaries would be engaged in university projects. This Telugu pair's actions undermined opportunities for companies that complied with H-1B regulations, as the visa allocation operates on a lottery system. Due to Rajidi and Mada's deceptive institutional claims, they received approvals that would not have been granted to their candidates otherwise, effectively taking spots away from applicants of compliant companies. Court documents indicate that the duo was aware that the positions mentioned in the petitions did not actually exist.
Misuse of Visa System
The court documents revealed that the beneficiaries did not work on any projects at the University of California. Instead, after obtaining H-1B visas based on false claims, the defendants began selling these beneficiaries to other clients. They knowingly provided false information, understanding that such details were crucial for decisions made by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) regarding visa issuance. As a result of their scheme, Rajidi and Mada gained an unfair advantage over other companies and reduced the quota of H-1B visas available for compliant competitors.
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