Face 20 years in jail.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Five Indian Americans have been indicted in New York City, under charges that they orchestrated an elaborate scheme involving visa and financial aid fraud.
Suresh “Sam” Hiranandaney (60), Lalit Chabria (54), Anita Chabria (49), Seema Shah (41) and Samir Hiranandaney (27) have all been charged with various counts of student visa fraud, student financial aid fraud, and wire fraud, according to the Department of Justice. Their indictment happened on Thursday, in front of US Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein in Manhattan Federal Court.
All of the five Indian Americans involved in the case were part of either Micropower Career Institute (MCI), a for-profit school system with five campuses throughout New York and New Jersey, or the Institute for Health Education (IHE), a for-profit center in New Jersey.
Sam Hiranandaney was the President of MCI, Anita Chabria (his sister) was Vice-President of MCI, and her husband, Lalit Chabria, was Vice-President of MCI and President of IHE. Samir Hiranandaney, who is Sam’s son, was the director of MCI’s campus at Hauppauge, while Seema Shah was a “high-level employee” at MCI’s Manhattan campus.
All five individuals, except for Samir Hiranandaney, where charged with student visa fraud conspiracy. Allegedly, the four were using the MCI and IHE campuses to help immigrants enter the country illegally, and would collect around $10,000 in fees from each of these students even though they weren’t going to the required number of classes (if they even went to class at all).
Any time that an MCI campus would come under scrutiny from law enforcement, the students that were being investigated were simply transferred to another MCI campus that wasn’t being looked at. These students were in the US under F-1 visas, which requires that schools report whether or not a student is attending the required number of classes so that USCIS knows if they should terminate a visa or keep it active.
The same four people were charged with wire fraud conspiracy, too, for the same scheme described earlier. As for the student financial aid fraud conspiracy – which involved just the Hiranandaneys and the Chabrias, not Shah – the individuals involved would fabricate information on aid forms in order to secure money for low-income students.
MCI was investigated under such allegations in 2011, but elected to “fix” the students’ records rather than admit to their guilt or do anything to actually solve the problem in the long-term.
The operation to bring them to justice was run, at least in part, by Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In a statement, Bharara condemned the actions of those involved and lauded law enforcement agents for their swift investigation.
“As alleged, through their for-profit schools, the defendants defrauded the government and exploited their students. For their personal financial gain, the defendants allegedly made false certifications about the schools’ compliance with visa and financial aid regulations when, in fact, they were not,” said Bharara.
The case was also brought to justice with the help of Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) James T. Hayes, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the US Department of Education Office of Inspector General’s Eastern Regional Office Brian M. Hickey, and Special Agent-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service David J. Schnorbus.
If found guilty, each of the charges leveled against these five could get them as much as 20 years in prison.
2 Comments
Definitely wrong, but how is this different from the employers who hire illegal immigrants – from the car wash with 6 people cleaning one car, to mid-sized dept. stores, to landscapers, construction, agriculture, processing – I can keep going – why doesn’t Preet Bharara investigate them – must be politically incorrect to go after another race/ethnicity.
I don’t mean any intrusion nor rebuttals, I just think Sir, that they caught the attention of the U.S. government because of the grants they obtained i.e. Pell grant and other forms of federal support.. but on the note of political correctness yes there is some discrepancy as they are not the only ones who commit such acts.