Former Bellevue CEO sentenced to seven years for H-1B visa fraud

The Seattle Times reports:

A Bellevue high-tech entrepreneur driven by what he admitted was a “relentless” and “blinding” pursuit of success has been sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for bringing high-tech workers to the U.S. under false pretenses.

Pradyumna Kumar Samal, the former CEO of two companies, Divensi and Azimetry, which supplied workers to tech companies including Microsoft and Amazon, used fraudulent and forged documents to get H-1B visas, according to his plea agreement. The documents made it appear the workers had jobs to go to, when in fact they did not.

Samal pleaded guilty to mail fraud and to failing to pay employment taxes. He agreed to more than $1 million in restitution.

“Based on your time in the U.S., you have basically defrauded everyone you could defraud,” said U.S. District Judge James Robart at the Friday sentencing.

Samal, 50, came to the U.S. from India nearly 20 years ago. This is the second time he has been prosecuted by the feds. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of computer intrusion in a case involving a contract dispute that led Samal’s previous company, Minecode, to disable another firm’s website.

Immigration brings cultural diversity !