H-1B CEO Busted in Federal Bribery Sting: FBI Raids Obama Appointee's Office

FBI Raid Arrests 2 at Obama Appointee’s Office

WASHINGTON - FBI agents on Thursday arrested two men in a bribery sting and searched the city's technology office, recently led by President Obama's recently appointed computer chief, Vivek Kundra.


On March 5, Obama named D.C. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Vivek Kundra as the federal government's Chief Information Officer (CIO). Funny timing...Kundra's last day was March 4. He was in charge of technology in the District since 2007, and has also been a consultant to Obama since he won the election. Kundra has now taken a leave from his position until further details become known of the FBI's investigation into Kundra's Washington, D.C. IT offices.


A private contractor and an employee of the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer Administration were both arrested in a federal bribery sting, involving Sushil Bansal, President and CEO of BPO outsourcing firm Advanced Integrated Technologies Corporation (AITC) receiving $350,000 in .Net Development Support and Peoplesoft Consulting Support contracts from the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Office.

A direct report to Kundra, Yusuf Acar, 40, an employee of the D.C. Office of the CTO was also taken into custody by FBI agents at his home in Northwest D.C. FBI agents found $70,000 in Acar's Northwest D.C. home when they arrested him Thursday morning.


Government records show Bansal is not a U.S. citizen and holds an H-1B visa, which is given to foreign workers in “specialty occupations” most notably the technology sector. And what “specialty occupations” might U.S. corporations and government agencies need to fill right now, with millions of white collar technology professionals losing their jobs to cheap foreign workers? For starters, knowing how and who to contact in Washington’s pay-to-play culture appears to still be en vogue around the Hill.


Bansal’s company, AITC has also received contracts from the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles. In 2008, he also received the Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Association of Indians in America, according to AITC's Web site. According to Bansal’s bio on the website, prior experience to founding his “fast growing IT consulting firm” involved working in several IT project management capacities implementing financial systems, including the Department of Homeland Security, the organization that dedicates itself to replacing American white collar professionals with cheap labor from India:

“He also worked with AMS-CGI and SAIC and provided IT consulting and project management services to the Department of Defense, US Navy, Department of Homeland Security, the Commerce Department, the Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Agriculture, the Federal Communications Commission, and several other civilian federal agencies.”

While millions of American computer science and IT professionals are losing their jobs due to corrupt and greedy cheap labor lobby hiring policies that our government officials seem to sanction, we can also thank pompous and out of touch journalists like Tom Friedman for promoting the inhumane meme that this “bunch of losers” known as American citizens are not worth hiring. (For a superb analysis on the Great American Labor Shortage Myth, read Citizen Carrie’s The Ross School of Outsourcing, where this “Detroit housewife” mops the floor with the butt end of the William Davidson Institute and Tom Lantos professor of business administration at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.")



President Obama has pledged to make transparency and government acquisition a priority, and appointing CIOs who pander to the corporate driven status quo agenda and cheap labor lobby at the expense of millions of unemployed and underemployed American technology professionals is not the best practice for Obama to seize this opportunity - unless of course, he also has some serious$ skin in the game. Is it too much to ask that this president starts choosing to make the right appointments for the sake of American citizens who worked so hard to build this great country by demanding a political and business culture of integrity, trust and credibility from his agency leaders and cabinet? Will this administration dwarf the previous one in its corrupt, pay-to-play culture?


Corporate America Code Blue…Meanwhile, American technologists, many with advanced degrees - are being told they need to be retrained -- but it is the CEOs and vc’s who need the retraining. It is high-time to deliver anti-sociopathic training skills and seminars to corporate, academic, and beltway “thought leaders” who have, since the nineties, been responsible for ruining the lives of millions of computer science and IT professionals. This ruse of a “skilled labor shortage” has been well-documented.


Let’s hope Obama’s team takes a few house cleaning tips from our friend, Citizen Carrie, who, in her aforementioned post, offers a detailed account of the inhumane hiring practices geared to kick Americans to the curb in favor for cheap, imported labor and provides a few suggestions to cure this sick house of corporate America’s love of the cheap labor lobby infected with the Hubris Disease.

-2Truthy