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Visa fraud: California man faces 12 years in prison

A California man was found guilty of 21 counts of visa fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft this month and could face 12 years in federal prison, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California announced.

A federal jury in San Francisco convicted Abhijit Prasad, 52, of Tracy, California, on Aug. 5.

According to the US Attorney’s Office, Prasad filed 19 petitions for H-1B nonimmigrant visas containing false statements — made under penalty of perjury — as to purported work projects to be performed at locations in California, including at Cisco Systems. The defendant submitted forged Cisco documents to US Citizenship and Immigration Services in support of his claims that the H-1B beneficiaries would work at Cisco. However, Cisco had no expectation that the foreign workers who were the beneficiaries of the visa petitions would actually work at Cisco on an existing work project, the attorney’s office said.

“Homeland Security Investigations remains laser focused to conduct document and benefit fraud investigations, arresting and bringing to justice individuals, like Prasad, who seek to undermine and abuse the laws of the United States,” said Tatum King, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (San Francisco and Northern California).

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