Indian American woman executives charged with H-1B visa fraud

iNDICA NEWS BUREAU

Two senior Indian American executives from South Bay,  were charged in federal court Friday with visa fraud and conspiracy to commit visa fraud. Patnaik was also charged with money laundering.

U.S. Attorney Stephanie M Hinds from the state department’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), San Francisco field office, made the announcement.

According to the indictment, PerfectVIPs, Inc., headquartered in San Jose, was incorporated in 2010 as a computer chip design products and services company. Both defendant Namrata Patnaik,  42, a resident of Saratoga, was CEO of PerfectVIPs. Kartiki Parekh, 56, a resident of Santa Clara, was the human resources manager.

The indictment said that from 2011 through April 2017, Patnaik and Parekh submitted fraudulent H-1B visa applications for foreign workers sponsored by PerfectVIPs and Patnaik later laundered the proceeds of the fraud.

H-1B visas are issued through the U.S. government’s H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers program. With an H-1B visa, an employer can employ a foreign worker in a “specialty occupation” in the U.S. on a temporary, non-immigrant basis.

A specialty occupation requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of specialized knowledge. The employee chosen for the occupation must have a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent in the relevant specialty.

Each employer seeking an H-1B visa to employ a non-immigrant foreign worker has to submit an application to the U.S. Department of Labor which attests, among other things, to labor conditions and describes the existence, duration and wages associated with the temporary job.

A subsequent petition requires, among other information, biographical data of the proposed foreign worker and identification of the address where the worker will be employed.

The indictment charged that from 2011 through April 2017 Patnaik and Parekh submitted 85 fraudulent H-1B visa applications for temporary non-immigrant workers sponsored by PerfectVIPs. Patnaik and Parekh submitted or caused to be submitted statements that the workers would be employed by PerfectVIPs to work on the company’s in-house contracts and projects at PerfectVIPs offices.

Once the applications were approved, they created a pool of H-1B workers who were placed in positions with other employers, the indictment said. This practice gave PerfectVIPs an unfair and illegal advantage over employment-staffing firms.

In the period in question, the indictment said, other employers paid nearly $7 million as fees to PerfectVIPs to cover the cost of the H-1B workers’ wages and salaries and a profit markup.

Patnaik and Parekh appeared in San Jose federal court Friday before Magistrate Judge Nathanael M Cousins. Both were ordered to appear in the U.S. District Court in San Jose Apr 12 at 9 am before District Judge Beth L Freeman.

The federal indictment charges both women with one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 and two counts of visa fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). The indictment also charges Patnaik with one count of money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957.

The maximum sentence for a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 is five years in prison. The maximum sentence for each violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1546(a) and for a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957 is 10 years in prison.

Each of the statutes also carries a maximum statutory fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss amount or, for money laundering, twice the amount of the criminally derived property involved.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Griswold is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Lynette Dixon. The indictment followed an investigation led by the DSS representative to the Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force (DBFTF), overseen by Homeland Security Investigations. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s Office of Fraud Detection and National Security also assisted the investigation.