A US federal court has sentenced an Indian-American businessman to 28 months in prison, to be followed by deportation to India, for running a H-1B visa fraud operation that used shell companies to apply for more than 800 work visas over several years, netting him over $20 million.
Apart from Raju Kosuri, the 45-year-old Virginia-based businessman who had pleaded guilty last year to visa fraud and making false statements, the court has ordered that his wife, Smriti Jharia, 46, and their US-born son be deported along with him once he completes his prison term in the United States.
Judge leonie M Brinkema of the US federal court in Alexandria, Virginia said that problems with the prosecution of the case led to a more lenient sentence, but that she had to send a message to anyone considering similar malfeasance, The Washington Post reported.
A federal grand jury had indicted Kosuri, his wife and four others in April last year in the case, saying they had fraudulently applied for more than 800 H-1B visas over the years, generating gross proceeds of at least $20 million.
“Since 2008, and at much greater scale since 2011, Kosuri has built a staffing business that amounts to a visa-for-sale system, in violation of federal law,” the indictment had stated, alleging that Kosuri had set up a network of shell companies, presenting them as independent businesses in need of Indian workers, but which he in fact owned and controlled.
Kosuri and his co-conspirators, the indictment said, used the shell entities to file petitions for non-existent job vacancies at Kosuri’s data center in Danville. It said the visa fraud scheme involved the forgery of numerous individuals’ signatures on visa petitions and exhibits without their knowledge.
The indictment had also alleged that Kosuri and Jharia conspired with a consultant named Raimondo Piluso to defraud the Small Business Administration, by submitting fraudulent HUBZone applications, generating $150,000 in loan proceeds and five contract awards.
Kosuri, who had immigrated from India in 1999 and was a lawful permanent resident, was paid millions by the companies where those visa recipients worked, the Post report said, adding he obtained millions in bank financing by misrepresenting his business and a $500,000 grant from the Virginia Tobacco Commission.
Jharia, Kosuri’s wife, was said to be one of the immigrants he illegally sponsored. She pleaded guilty to falsely obtaining naturalization and agreed to give up her American citizenship and move back to India, along with the couple’s US-born son.
The judge dismissed charges against three of the six defendants since prosecutors failed to produce relevant evidence, according to court records.
A sixth defendant, who was allowed to withdraw her guilty plea and went to trial earlier this month, awaits a verdict.