Indian CEO Arrested on Visa Fraud Charges

BELLEVUE, WA— The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Washington and U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes announced on August 29th that Pradyumna Kumar Samal has been arrested on visa fraud charges.

Samal, a 59-year-old citizen of India, is the chief executive officer of two Bellevue-based IT firms. He was arrested August 28th at the Sea-Tac Airport after he arrived from an international flight.

The criminal complaint describing the visa fraud scheme was filed under seal in April of 2018, soon after Samal fled the U.S. while the investigation was ongoing, it said. He remained out of the country until August 28th.

The criminal complaint describes how two companies incorporated by Samal in 2010 and 2011 engaged in a scheme sometimes referred to as a “bench-and-switch” scheme, which exploits foreign-national workers, competes unlawfully in the market, and defrauds the U.S. government, the attorney’s office said.

According to the investigation that began in 2015, Samal served as the CEO of Divensi and Azimetry, both of which employed IT workers for major corporate clients.

The complaint alleges that Samal submitted and directed his employees to submit, forge, and falsify application materials to the U.S. government, making it appear as if two corporate clients had already agreed to use several foreign-national employees named in the applications.

The forged documents included forged letters and fraudulent statements of employment, which appeared as if they had been signed by senior executives from the two corporate clients, it said.

After USCIS relied on the false representations and approved the applications, Samal’s companies “benched” the foreign nationals until and unless they were able to place those employees with actual clients, it added.

Nearly 200 workers may have been brought in under the phony applications. The employees were forced to pay Samal’s companies a partially-refundable “security deposit”, as much as $5,000 for the visa filings, regardless of whether they were assigned to any projects that provided them with income, the attorney’s office said.

If convicted of the crime, Samal could face up to 10 years in prison and pay a fine of up to $250,000.