Indian IT Staffing Company Owner Kishore Kumar Kavuru Sentenced to 15-Months in Prison for H-1B Visa Fraud
November 23, 2021 - Sunnyvale, CA based Indian IT Staffing Company owner Kishore Kumar Kavuru was sentenced to 15-months in prison for H-1B visa fraud today by U.S. District Judge Judge Edward J. Davila.
Kishore Kumar Kavuru, according to the indictment, falsified over 100 H-1B visa applications and obtained more than $1.5 million in fraud proceeds.
Prior Guilty Plea
Kishore Kumar Kavuru pleaded guilty to one count of visa fraud on May 24, 2021According to the May 24, 21 plea agreement:
Kavuru stated he owned, operated, and was CEO of four different staffing companies. His companies specialized in obtaining H-1B visas for foreign skilled workers and placing these individuals in the United States at technology firms seeking qualified H-1B contractors. Known as H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers program, the H-1B visa program allows an employer to temporarily hire a skilled foreign worker in the United States on a nonimmigrant basis. The position must qualify as a “specialty occupation,” that is, one that requires the application of specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in the specialty. At the four staffing companies he owned and ran, Kavuru was responsible for creating H-1B visa applications for foreign workers and submitting them to the appropriate government agencies of the United States.Besides the prison term, the court ordered Kishore Kumar Kavuru to forfeit $533,350.03 and included a three year period of supervision following his release from prison.
Kavuru admitted in his plea agreement that from 2009 through at least 2017 he engaged in a scheme to obtain H-1B visas from government agencies by submitting H-1B applications that contained false and fraudulent statements. Kavuru admitted to submitting more than one hundred applications that falsely described available H-1B positions and falsely stated that the H-1B workers were to be placed at the positions at specific companies. Kavuru admitted he knew at the time he submitted the applications that the companies did not have the named jobs and that he did not intend to place the workers at those companies. None of those foreign skilled workers were ever placed at those companies. Kavuru – or one of his employees at Kavuru’s direction – nevertheless signed the visa applications attesting under penalty of perjury to the truth of those false statements.
Kavuru further admitted that he required the H-1B foreign skilled workers to pay him thousands of dollars in cash for the cost of preparing and submitting their H-1B visa petitions, which is a violation of U.S. Department of Labor (US DOL) regulations. He also admitted requiring his H-1B visa recipients to go unpaid for months while he looked for legitimate H-1B positions for them, violating US DOL regulations by failing to pay H-1B workers while they are “benched” in this manner.
Kishore Kumar Kavuru will begin serving his 15-months prison term on February 10, 2022.