Sampath Rajidi and Sreedhar Mada, both 51 and based in Dublin, California, have pleaded guilty to orchestrating a multi-year H-1B visa fraud scheme, as announced by the US Justice Department. The two men used fake job offers linked to the University of California to secure work permits for foreign nationals. Rajidi operated two visa service companies, S-Team Software Inc and Uptrend Technologies LLC, which sponsored foreign workers for H-1B specialty occupation visas. Mada, serving as Chief Information Officer at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UCANR) in Davis, lent his name to the fraudulent applications, which falsely claimed that workers would be employed at the university. The scheme, which ran from 2020 to 2023, not only provided the accused with an unfair advantage over legitimate firms but also reduced the availability of H-1B visas for genuine applicants. Investigators confirmed that the positions listed in the petitions were non-existent and that the beneficiaries never worked on any University of California projects. Rajidi and Mada are set to be sentenced on July 30 by US District Judge Troy L Nunley.