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Indian co-owner of San Jose staffing firm jailed for H1-B visa fraud
Kishore Dattapuram, 55, worked with his co-defendants to submit fraudulent H-1B applications that falsely represented that the foreign workers had specific jobs waiting for them.
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Staff Reporter1
- Thu, 24, Apr 2025
- 03:06 EDT
- 105
Representative Image / Pexels
Kishore Dattapuram, the co-owner of a San Jose-based staffing firm Nanosemantics, Inc., has been sentenced to 14 months in federal prison for visa fraud and conspiracy to commit visa fraud. Dattapuram, of Santa Clara, was indicted in February 2019 with two co-defendants on one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and 10 counts of substantive visa fraud.
In November 2024, he pleaded guilty to all counts. According to a press release by US Attorney’s Office (Northern District of California), Nanosemantics received a commission for workers placed at client companies. The staffing firm, based in San Jose, regularly submitted H1-B petitions for foreign workers so that they could obtain temporary authorization to live and work for employers in the United States.
It should be noted that to secure an H1-B visa, the employer or other sponsor must submit an ‘I-129’ petition to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The petition and associated documentation must confirm the existence and duration of the job waiting for the worker, and describe key details, including the wages associated with the position.
Dattapuram, 55, worked with his co-defendants to submit fraudulent H-1B applications that falsely represented that the foreign workers had specific jobs waiting for them at designated end-client companies when in fact, the jobs did not exist. The accused paid companies to be listed as end-clients for foreign workers, despite knowing that the workers would never work for these employers.
Also Read: Indian national sentenced to prison for smuggling non-citizens into US
“The goal of the scheme was to allow Nanosemantics to obtain visas for job candidates before securing jobs for them, thereby allowing Nanosemantics to place those workers with employers as soon as those jobs were available, rather than waiting for the visa application process to conclude, and giving Nanosemantics an unfair advantage over its competitors,” the US Attorney’s Office said.
US District Judge Edward J. Davila ordered Dattapuram to serve three years of supervised release, forfeit $125,456.48, and pay a fine of $7,500 and a $1,100 special assessment fee.
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