H-1B visa fraud: Two Indian men plead guilty in California; hiring people for non-existent positions

Two Indian-American men have pleaded guilty to running an H-1B scam in California, where they hired people promising jobs at the University of California and defrauded the beneficiaries and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Two Indian-American men pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit H-1B visa fraud by hiring foreigners and promising them jobs at the University of California, but the university had no such requirement. Sampath Rajidi, 51, and Sreedhar Mada, 51, filed H-1B visa applications for numerous beneficiaries between June 2020 and January 2023. After those applications were approved, the two handed the H-1Bs to other clients. Sampath Rajidi runs two visa services companies, S-Team Software Inc. and Uptrend Technologies LLC. Mada, who served as chief information officer at the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources, helped the two plan the fraud. Mada had inside information about the university and had supervisory authority, but he could not hire H-1B workers for his department without authorization from his superiors. But as part of the conspiracy, Mada leaked his name and position on an H-1B petition, leading USCIS to believe they were indeed recruiting employees for the university. Court documents allege that both knew the positions listed in the petition did not exist and that they provided H-1Bs to other clients. “They submitted false information because they knew it would be critical to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) decisions to issue visas,” court documents state. “As a result of their conspiracy, Rajidi and Mada obtained an unfair advantage over other companies and depleted the pool of H-1B visas available to competing companies.” The two defendants face statutory penalties of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The government has launched a crackdown on H-1B visa abuse, which has evolved into a complex operation involving multiple layers of fraud. Some staffing firms, such as the one run by Sampath, take fees from H-1Bs, while others take regular payroll deductions. Some scams are based on false promises that the beneficiary will not get the promised job.