Hari Karne, 32 from Hyderabad, an Indian-origin immigration manager of an outsourcing company has been found guilty in an H1-B tech visa fraud case. He had admitted before Federal Judge Kevin McNulty in Newark, New Jersey, that he had conspired to obstruct the investigation into a scheme to get fraudulent visas for the foreign workers and falsify their salary information.
The prosecution argued that Karne, from Hyderabad, India has worked as an immigration manager with SCM Private Limited in India, which had service agreements with the SCM Data and MMC System that had provided information technology consultants to US companies.
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Karne admitted that in February and March last year he had helped SCM Data and MMC Systems to prepare false leave slips for the foreign workers during a Department of Labour audit to conceal the fact that they were not paid during those months, prosecutors said.
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One employee, was identified only as “Individual 1” in the court papers, was not paid for some time around January last year. Since, the outsourcing companies had to show that it had paid H-1B visa-holders for full-time, Karne asked the “Individual 1” to pay cash to the outsourcers from the person’s earnings from the company to which the person was outsourced, prosecutors said.
Karne could face a maximum of five years in jail, but often the actual penalties are less.
By Premji
