An Indian businessman has been sentenced to prison in California on charges he fraudulently tried to get H-1B work visas for workers from India to fill non-existent jobs in the US. Srinivasa Chennupati has been sentenced to six months in prison and three years of supervised release for making false statements on 11 applications for the high-technology worker visas, the Department of Justice said in a statement.
33-year-old Chennupati had pleaded guilty in December 2010 to visa fraud charges.
According to the plea agreement, Chennupati admitted that he had submitted 11 foreign worker petitions in 2009 to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that contained counterfeit job offer letters from companies including the Gap Corporation, Wells Fargo Bank and Genentech.
He had falsely stated on the foreign worker petitions that he had 11 jobs available from these companies.
