Dive Brief:
- The founder of a sham university in Pleasanton, Calif., has been convicted of conspiracy to commit visa fraud, money laundering, and alien harboring.
- In all, a federal jury found Susan Su guilty of 31 counts related to a multi-million-dollar fraud to provide student visas to foreign nationals so they could remain in the U.S.
- Su ran the so-called visa mill, Tri-Valley University, from 2008 until she was arrested in 2011.
Dive Insight:
This is the case cited by a U.S. General Accountability Office investigation into a larger problem with student visa fraud. According to the San Jose Mercury News, a similar case is scheduled for trial in July in San Jose federal court: Jerry Wang is accused of running Herguan University as a fraud school to provide student visas to overseas students. One of Su’s mistakes: 550 students who were enrolled at Tri-Valley were registered as living in the same two-bedroom apartment in Sunnyvale, Calif., federal investigators discovered. The fake, unaccredited university was set up to make money mostly from online students, and Su made about $5.5 million in less than two years, buying property for the school’s offices, a mansion, and a Mercedes-Benz. She also threatened at least one student with deportation after the student complained and asked for her money back. Su faces years of federal prison time when she is sentenced June 20.