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Accountant gets 18-month prison sentence for visa fraud
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Posted on May 18 2022
An accountant of a manpower agency in the CNMI has been sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the NMI to 18 months in prison for conspiring with others in a visa fraud scheme.
Mylene Basco Casupanan, 42, a Filipino citizen, was also ordered to undergo two years of supervised release following imprisonment, render 40 hours of community service, and pay a mandatory $100 special assessment fee.
“Casupanan is the final defendant to be held accountable in this complex investigation and prosecution,” said U.S. Attorney Shawn N. Anderson. “Our office is actively targeting this activity in the CNMI. We will continue bring those who abuse the CW-1 program to justice.”
In January of 2019, Casupanan and Alejandro Tumandao Nario created A&A Enterprises, a manpower agency business incorporated on the island of Saipan in the CNMI. Nario, president of the company, and Casupanan, the accountant and business manager, operated this business which profited from the submission of more than 100 fraudulent CNMI-Only Transitional Worker (CW-1) visas.
As part of the scheme, Casupanan recruited foreign workers from the Philippines and in the CNMI, and then forged documentation for submission with their CW-1 applications. Rather than provide full-time employment to these foreign workers as required under the CW-1 program, Casupanan and Nario demanded the foreign workers find their own employment in Saipan and then pay A&A Enterprises a biweekly tax of $194.
Nario was previously sentenced on Feb. 4, 2022, to serve 21 months of incarceration in a federal prison.
“A&A Enterprises went through great lengths to defraud the U.S. government and potential beneficiaries of the CW-1 visa program,” said Homeland Security Investigations Honolulu special agent in charge John F. Tobon. “Let this be a clear message that there will be serious consequences for those who exploit our immigration system by engaging in these elaborate fraud schemes.”
The case was investigated by HIS and prosecuted by Albert S. Flores, Jr., assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of the Northern Mariana Islands. (PR)
