Weon Keuk Lee, Visa Fraud, California 2024

LOS ANGELES – A federal grand jury has indicted two men in a scheme to obtain lawful permanent resident status for South Korean nationals by submitting fraudulent visa applications that falsely claimed American businesses wanted to hire skilled foreign workers.

The indictment alleges that Weon Keuk Lee, 49, a South Korean national and licensed California attorney, and Young Shin Kim, 59, a naturalized United States citizen and former accountant, exploited the EB-2(a) visa program by submitting bogus Alien Worker Petitions on behalf of companies that purportedly wanted to hire foreign nationals.

According to court documents, those South Korean visa applicants simply wanted to immigrate to the United States, and they paid between $30,000 and $70,000 to Lee and Kim in the hopes of obtaining a visa.

The indictment charges Lee and Kim with conspiracy to commit visa fraud, a charge that carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.

Kim was arrested in this case on October 3 pursuant to a criminal complaint. During a court hearing the next day, Kim was ordered released on a $50,000 bond and was ordered to appear for an arraignment on November 8. Lee, 50, is believed to be currently residing in Vietnam.

Between 2007 and 2015, Lee and Kim filed approximately 117 fraudulent Alien Worker Petitions with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which resulted in the agency issuing more than 125 visas for alien workers, their spouses, and their children.

The investigation is ongoing, with representatives from the Document Benefit Fraud Task Force, including the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, working together to uncover the full extent of the scheme.

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