Woman charged with H1B visa fraud in US

New York, March 15: A woman in the US has been arrested on charges of H-1B visa fraud for luring foreigners seeking work in the US with nonexistent jobs and charging them unnecessary visa fee.

Raina Massey, the head of Newark-based Care Worldwide (CWW), is facing charges of wire fraud, visa fraud and identity theft after she allegedly conducted a multifaceted immigration scheme from February 2012 to March 2015, federal authorities said.

She was arrested yesterday. According to federal prosecutors, from February 2012 through March 2015, Massey and others executed the fraud scheme through her company, which purported to be a clinical research company, but was actually a shell company that did little to no legitimate work of any kind. Massey and others sought out and advertised for qualified foreign professionals, purportedly to work for CWW in clinical research positions as beneficiaries of H-1B visas.

These beneficiaries became victims of the scheme because the advertised positions did not actually exist. For one set of victims, Massey engaged in "benching", a form of fraud in which Massey and others falsely represented that the beneficiaries would have speciality technical jobs waiting for them upon their arrival at CWW.

After taking illegal payments from these beneficiaries, Massey and others then completed applications for H-1B visas for these beneficiaries.

However, when the beneficiaries arrived in the United States, Massey and others employed them in menial tasks, such as handing out fliers on street corners.

For a second set of victims, Massey and others, after illegally taking payments from the victims, never actually applied for H-1B visas.

Massey and others provided these victims with false and fraudulent Form I-797Cs, which contained receipt numbers from other, previously filed, H-1B visa applications.

For a third set of victims, Massey and others, after illegally taking payments from the victims based on fraudulent representations regarding H-1B visas, never provided any documentation whatsoever to the victims.

In all cases, Massey and others demanded and took illegal payments from victims in exchange for purportedly filing H-1B visa applications on behalf of the victims, federal prosecutors alleged.

PTI