The competition to come to the United States on an H-1B visa for high skilled workers has opened the door for scammers, reports the Global Post.
Just 65,000 of these visas are issued each year.
There are reportedly hundreds of companies offering to help for fees that can exceed well into the four figures.
In 2009, Wikileaks listed H1-B scams as one of the top two fraud categories in India.
US investigators have announced several major busts of fraudsters in recent years.
“Between 25 and 40 people write to me every week saying they would like to get to the US and asking which company we could recommend,” said Rajiv Dabhadkar, the chief executive of the National Organization for Software and Technology Professionals. “These companies are a major problem.”
You can read more about the crackdown on this scam in the Global Post.