HYDERABAD: Cloudgen LLC, a Hyderabad-based tech firm that also has its office in Houston, US, has admitted to committing a major H-1B visa fraud by cheating several Indian techies. The visa fraud was committed from March 2013 to December 2020, during which Cloudgen made a profit of $493,516.28, by taking a percentage from the workers’ salaries as their fees, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement on May 31.
Hyderabad-based Sasi Pallempati is the president of the company, which has an office at Gachibowli, Hyderabad and also in Canada and Romania. The company admitted before the Department of Justice, to recruiting multiple IT workers from India and falsely procuring H-1B visas for them to enter and work in the US.
The company adopted a bench and switch scheme in which they filed documents with the Departments of Labor (DOL) and Homeland Security (DHS) containing fraudulent statements about the availability of work at third-party national employers. Cloudgen would then submit forged contracts stating each third-party company had a job for the Indian national.
Cloudgen used fake documents
Based on false documents, Cloudgen, the Hyderabad-based tech firm which has its office in the US, would submit paperwork to get an H-1B worker’s visa for the Indian nationals. When granted, they would use that visa to allow the Indian nationals to enter the United States. Since the job offers were fake, the individuals were lodged in different locations across the country, while Cloudgen obtained other jobs for them.
This gave Cloudgen a competitive advantage by having a steady bench or supply of visa-ready workers to send to different employers based on market needs when the true process actually takes some time. Once workers had obtained new employment, the switch would occur when the new third party company filed immigration paperwork for the foreign workers. Chief US District Judge Lee H Rosenthal will announce the sentencing on September 16.
BENCH AND SWITCH SCHEME
The firm adopted a bench and switch scheme, wherein they submitted fake documents and forged contracts to the Depts of Labour and Homeland Secuity