3 Bay Area residents and Nevada man charged in major visa fraud scheme

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Three Bay Area residents and a Nevada man have been indicted on a variety of federal charges for allegedly submitting dozens of fraudulent applications for specialty worker visas in a scheme uncovered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s (USCIS) Office of Fraud Detection and National Security, and the U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service.

Sunitha Guntipally, 43, of Fremont; her husband, Venkat Guntipally, 47, of Fremont; Pratap “Bob” Kondamoori, 54, of Incline Village, Nevada; and his sister, Sandhya Ramireddi, 56, of Pleasanton, were named in a 33-count indictment filed Thursday charging them with conspiracy to commit visa fraud, use of false documents, mail fraud, and other offenses. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonas Lerman aided by Nina Burney. 

The four defendants allegedly used three California corporations to orchestrate the submission of more than 100 fraudulent H-1B visa applications. According to the indictment, Venkat and Sunitha Guntipally founded and owned two employment-staffing companies for technology firms, DS Soft Tech and Equinett. Venkat Guntipally served as the president of both companies, and Sunitha Guntipally was vice president. The indictment further alleges Kondamoori is the founder and owner of SISL Networks, and his sister Ramireddi allegedly worked as the human resources and operations manager for all three firms.    

According to the indictment, the defendants submitted H-1B visa applications to the government claiming the foreign workers named in the applications would be placed at specific companies in the United States. However, the indictment notes the companies either did not exist or never intended to employ the foreign workers named in the defendants’ applications. 

The indictment states Kondamoori responded to federal law enforcement officers investigating the visa fraud conspiracy with various false representations. He allegedly claimed, among other things, that he and SemSolar were developing a product called “Eftia Master.Scribe” for which he required H-1B workers; that Softbank, Sprint’s parent company, was both an investor in SemSolar and a business partner of SISL Networks; and that Kondamoori was a general partner of Focus Ventures. According to the indictment, all of those representations were false.

The H-1B Specialty Occupation Workers Program allows companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in the United States on a nonimmigrant basis in a specialty occupation. A specialty occupation requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent in the specific specialty.