The owner of a Somerset, NJ-based IT staffing and consulting company was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of submitting 11 fraudulent H-1B visa applications as well as fraudulently procuring his own citizenship, according to an announcement by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey.

Neeraj Sharma, the owner and CEO of IT staffing and consulting company Magnavision LLC, was charged with one count of visa fraud and one count of naturalization fraud.

According to the complaint, Sharma recruited foreign nationals — often student visa holders or recent college graduates with IT experience — in order to staff IT projects for company clients. When submitting the potential staffers’ H-1B visa paperwork to US Citizenship and Immigrations Services, he allegedly falsely represented that the foreign workers had full-time positions awaiting them at a national bank in Somerset County, a prerequisite to securing their visas. However, the complaint claims Sharma had never secured work for the applicants; he himself was employed as a contracted business analyst at the bank and submitted fraudulent letters to USCIS on the bank’s letterhead with forged signatures of bank executives.

The visa and naturalization fraud charges carry a maximum potential penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.