3 Indians arrested in US for Visa Fraud

Three Indians have pleaded guilty in a US court for conspiring to commit student visa and financial aid fraud through a for-profit school they ran. They were arrested in May 2014 and up on the investigation of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI), their wrongdoings were exposed and they have pleaded guilty in the Manhattan Federal Court.

Suresh Hiranandaney, 61, Lalit Chabria, 54, and Anita Chabira, 50 agreed to forfeit USD 7.4 million of proceeds of the student visa fraud conspiracy to the US government and another million dollars in restitution to the US Department of Education for losses incurred due to the fraud. They now face a maximum of 10 years in prison and the sentence will be out in September this year.

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The trio were associated with the Micropower Career Institute, a for-profit school with five campuses in New York and New Jersey, as well as with the Institute for Health Education (IHE), a for-profit school located in New Jersey. They were also charge for not reporting to the immigration authorities that foreign citizens were not attending classes at their institutes, despite a federal law requirement that foreign citizens on student visas must pursue full courses of study at approved schools.