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Dattapuram and Giri’s sentencing is scheduled for February 24, 2025. Aswapathi is due for a sentencing status update on November 25, 2024
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Each defendant faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for each visa fraud charge and five years for conspiracy, along with fines of up to $250,000 per charge.
Three Indian-origin executives in the United States have pled guilty to a wide-reaching H1B visa fraud scheme in California, reported gujaratsamachar.com.
Kishore Dattapuram of Santa Clara, Kumar Aswapathi of Austin, and Santosh Giri of San Jose, who managed the San Jose-based staffing firm Nanosemantics, Incorporated, admitted to submitting fraudulent H1B job applications to secure visas for foreign workers. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California released the details of their admissions this week, following indictments filed as early as February 2019.
The case charged the defendants with one count of conspiracy to commit visa fraud and 10 counts of visa fraud. Aswapathi pled guilty in 2020, while Giri and Dattapuram entered their pleas in October 2024.
- According to court documents, the goal of the scheme was to gain an unfair advantage over competitors by obtaining visas in advance
- This allowed Nanosemantics to place foreign workers with client companies immediately upon securing actual job opportunities, bypassing standard processing timelines
- By misusing the H1B visa process, Nanosemantics benefitted financially, while other companies adhered to the lawful application procedures
According to federal prosecutors, Dattapuram and Aswapathi owned and operated Nanosemantics, which provided skilled workers to technology companies across the Bay Area. They reportedly submitted fraudulent H1B applications that misrepresented job openings for these workers, allowing Nanosemantics to secure visas before jobs were genuinely available.
The indictment detailed how Dattapuram, Aswapathi, and Giri worked together to circumvent the U.S. immigration system. By falsely representing that designated end-client companies were ready to hire foreign workers, they created a pathway to secure visas for candidates. Dattapuram allegedly paid companies to list themselves as end-client employers, fully aware the workers would not actually be employed there. Giri, who owned LexGiri, a legal outsourcing firm, collaborated closely with Nanosemantics in coordinating these fraudulent applications.
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