Telugu Techie Jailed For 14 Yrs in H-1B Fraud Case!

In what could be considered a catastrophic outcome for a Telugu software engineer in the United States, he has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for a H1B Visa fraud. Here is a look into his story, and this could potentially serve as a worthy lesson for every Indian software engineer out there.

Kishore Dattapuram, a 55-year-old Indian-origin tech entrepreneur from Santa Clara, California, has been sentenced to 14 months in federal prison for executing a large-scale H-1B visa fraud scheme.

As the co-founder of Nanosemantics Inc., a tech staffing firm, Dattapuram submitted numerous fraudulent H-1B applications by falsely claiming that foreign workers had legitimate job offers.

This allowed his company to create a bench of visa-ready workers who could be quickly placed at client companies, giving them an unfair edge in the competitive Bay Area tech market.

In addition to prison time, Dattapuram will serve three years of supervised release, pay a $7,500 fine, and a $1,100 special assessment. The case, which began with a 2019 indictment, also involved two Indian-origin co-defendants Kumar Aswapathi (55) and Santosh Giri (48).

All three pleaded guilty in November to one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and ten counts of visa fraud. The sentencing reflects the U.S. government’s firm stance against visa fraud and the exploitation of immigration systems for business gain.

This is a pretty significant development regarding the H1B visa fraud, and this could be serving as a strong lesson for the aspirants out there.