Mercury News | 3 September 2018
An Indian citizen, CEO of two U.S. staffing firms, was arrested upon his return to the U.S. and charged with engineering what federal authorities are calling a “multi-year visa-fraud scheme” centered on the controversial H-1B visa.
Pradyumna Kumar Samal, 49, had earlier this year “fled the United States” amid a federal investigation into employment practices at the two Washington State staffing firms he led, Divensi and Azimetry, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Samal is accused of engineering a type of visa fraud known as a “bench-and-switch” scheme, court documents said. In this type of visa scam by a staffing company, a firm secures visas through fake or doctored documents, and then offers up workers to clients who are not designated in application materials. Cutting the time between a client’s agreement to use a worker and the receipt of an H-1B visa for the worker provides a business advantage, federal authorities said in a court filing.
CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE