The owner and CEO of four California staffing companies was arrested Friday on charges relating to H-1B visa fraud, the US Department of Labor and US Attorney’s Office announced. A federal grand jury indicted Kishore Kumar Kavuru on 10 counts of visa fraud and 10 counts of mail fraud in connection with an alleged scheme to maintain a pool of foreign workers for the clients of Kavuru’s consulting companies. 

According to the charges, the Sunnyvale, Calif., resident was the owner and CEO of four consulting companies: Scopus Consulting Group Inc.; ITECH Analyst Corp; Infinity Methods Corp; and Orian Engineers Inc. He allegedly submitted fraudulent documents to both the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security containing details of fake work projects awaiting the foreign workers. Because many of the applications were ultimately approved, Kavuru had a pool of unemployed H-1B beneficiaries who were immediately available for legitimate work projects, giving him a competitive advantage over other staffing companies that followed the visa application process for petitioning foreign workers, according to the Justice Department.  

The indictment cited one example in which Kavuru’s consulting companies submitted documents for 43 petitions for H-1B software engineers, suggesting he had a contract to place them to work on a specific project at an employee benefits and health insurance brokerage company that actually had no software engineer positions available.

Charges also allege Kavuru required some prospective workers to pay thousands of dollars in cash before he would apply for their visas and required some workers to wait unpaid to be placed at an end-client’s workplace.

Kavuru made his initial federal court appearance on Friday and was released on bond; his arraignment and identification of counsel are scheduled for Nov. 9.