Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
A Dayton staffing company has pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in connection to visa fraud committed by Wright State University.
Web Yoga Inc., a privately held Dayton-based company that specializes in information technology staffing, admitted to knowing about visa fraud at Wright State but failed to notify a federal authority, according to a release from the Department of Justice.
The company will pay a fine of around $566,000 before sentencing, according to the court. Wright State agreed in November to settle its part in the federal investigation into its H-1B visa misuse for $1 million.
More on the federal probe
“Today’s guilty plea marks the successful culmination of a complex visa-fraud investigation by HSI and our partners,” said Vance Callander, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in Michigan and Ohio. “This outcome should serve as a stark warning to entities who may be seeking to exploit the U.S. Visa process.”
During the summer of 2010, an official with Wright State approached Web Yoga and proposed an arrangement whereby the university would source H-1B visa holders from overseas and subcontract them to Web Yoga for placement at client locations around the country, according to the DOJ.
Between 2010 and 2013, WSU entered into sponsored research contracts with Web Yoga. Wright State employed software engineers, obtained H-1B visas for the employees, and paid their respective salary and benefits as employees of the university, according to the DOJ.
