PTI
Washington, Feb 21: US federal authorities have claimed to have unearthed a major H-1B visa racket with the arrest of at least 11 persons, most of them suspected to be of Indian origin.
Though the officials did not reveal the citizenship of those arrested, the names released indicated that almost all of them are either Indian or persons of Indian origin.
Vision Systems Group, an IT company headquartered in South Plainfield New Jersey, has been indicted on 10 federal counts including conspiracy and mail fraud charge. Viswa Mandalapu is its CEO and president, according to the information available on the company's website.
US attorney Matthew Whitker alleged that Vision Systems Group, with a branch office in Coon Rapids, Iowa, used fraudulent documents to bring H-1B visa workers into the country.
The government is seeking the forfeiture of USD 7.4 million in proceeds raised through the alleged offenses.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as this investigation goes," he said.
Besides Vision System Groups, at least five other companies are under investigations because of their alleged visa fraud. Two of them Worldwide Software Services and Sana Systems are based in Iowa.
According to the list of those arrested by the federal authorities, Shiva Neeli was arrested in Boston; Ramakrishna Maguluri in Atlanta, Villiappan Subbaiah in Dallas and Suresh Pola in Philadelphia.
Chockalingham Palaniappan and Vijay Myneni were arrested in San Jose, California, while Venkata Guduru and Amit Justa were arrested in New Jersey. One Karambir Yadav was also arrested. All the arrests were made on Wednesday and on charges of conspiracy and mail fraud, the attorney said.
Vishnu Reddy, president of Pacific West Corporation of Santa Clara in California was arrested in Los Angeles. Praveen Andapally, president of Venturisoft Inc in South Plainfield, New Jersey, was arrested in New Jersey on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy and for false statement in immigration matters.
According to the indictment Vision Systems failed to maintain a permanent office for workers in Iowa, while most of its workers worked in different states.