Indian American woman arrested for visa fraud

NEW YORK (Diya TV) — Raina Massey, an Indian-American woman from Elmont, N.Y., posing as a medical doctor, has been arrested on charges alleging H-1B visa fraud. She’s been luring foreigners from overseas to the U.S., promising non-existent jobs and charging them a visa fee, according to the complaint.

Massey, who currently serves as the head the New Jersey-based Care Worldwide, faces collective charges of wire fraud, visa fraud and identity theft, after federal authorities have alleged she conducted a multifaceted immigration scheme from February 2012 to March 2015. According to prosecutors, Massey, and others, executed the fraud using the arms of the company she works at, which purported to be a clinical research company.

In reality, Care Worldwide served as a shell company for a much larger corporation, but did little to no legitimate work of any kind, according to authorities.

Massey and her counterparts sought out and advertised jobs for qualified foreign professionals, likely to work in jobs for Care Worldwide in clinical research positions as beneficiaries of H-1B visas. Said beneficiaries ultimately served as victims in the scheme, as the aforementioned positions never existed. In one particular instance, Massey engaged in a “benching” scheme — a form of fraud in which one or a group of individuals falsely represent the existence of jobs in the effort of obtaining work visas, according to the complaint.

After receiving payment from the victims, Massey and others then completed applications for H-1B visas for the beneficiaries. However, when the beneficiaries arrived stateside, they were employed in remedial positions, including standing on street corners to hand out flyers, authorities said.

On a different occasion, Massey and her counterparts took payment from a separate set of beneficiaries, but never completed applications for their visas. Instead, the victims were provided with falsely doctored Form I-797Cs, which contained receipt numbers from other, previously filed, H-1B visa applications. In all cases, Massey demanded and took illegal payments from the victims based on fraudulent representations regarding H-1B visas and never provided any documentation whatsoever to the victims, according to authorities.

Recurring Issue?

According to Courthouse News Service, in 2012, Massey, again through Care Worldwide, charged three Filipino college graduates thousands of dollars in “training fees” for non-existent jobs. Instead, she forced the youngsters into labor-intense jobs, and threatened deportation if they complained, according to the report.

The workers – Isidra Tuburan, Rosalinda Quilario and Wendolen Almonte – sued Raina Massey, Jerry Sona, and Care Worldwide, in Federal Court. Sona, Massey’s brother, runs the company’s Manhattan office, the workers say.

Doctor Massey?

In a 2014 report, it was written by Pix11 that Massey claimed she went to medical school in India. No further details of her schooling were provided. Pix11 was contacted by a New York couple, Seonarine and Shanti Bishundial, who claimed to have paid Massey a $100,000 fee for clinical research training — Seonarine said after Massey received the payment, she disappeared, according to the report.

“She keep ignoring phone calls and then I realized that something is not right,” he said.