ALEJANDRO Tumandao Nario, president and owner of A&A Enterprises, a manpower agency that provides employee labor services to businesses and individuals, has pled guilty to one count of fraud and misuse of visas and permits.
Nario was accused of petitioning CW-1 visas for non-existing employment to foreign nationals, and requiring them to pay “routine taxes.”
Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court for the NMI found Nario fully competent to enter a knowing, voluntary and intelligent plea. At the change of plea hearing on Aug. 20, Nario was represented by court-appointed attorney Steven Pixley while Shey Owens served as the defendant’s Filipino interpreter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Albert Flores Jr. appeared via video teleconference.
Judge Manglona accepted the plea and adjudged Nario guilty of the offense.
The judge then unsealed the plea agreement and vacated the jury trial. Nario will remain released pending sentencing which was set for Dec. 17, 2021 at 9 a.m.
On July 9, 2021, U.S. Homeland Security Investigation agents and CNMI Department of Public Safety police officers executed arrest warrants at A&A Enterprise, a manpower, construction, and ground maintenance services company. Nario and Mylene Basco Casupanan, an employee of A&A Enterprises, were placed under custody.
Casupanan was charged separately with one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S.
According to the indictment, Casupanan conspired with Nario to defraud the U.S. in filing CW-1 petitions to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
“It was part of the conspiracy that A&A Enterprises would, in exchange for money, submit a petition for CW-1 visas that would falsely and fraudulently represent that a full-time employer-employee relationship would exist between A&A Enterprises and the beneficiaries under the employment terms set forth in the petition,” the indictment stated.
It added that Nario, “between or about Jan. 1, 2019, and continuing through or about Feb. 1, 2021, … knowingly caused to be sent, via a private or commercial interstate carrier, namely FedEx, I-129CW petitions on behalf of foreign citizen beneficiaries to the USCIS California Service Center in Laguna Niguel, California. The I-129CW petitions included a contract of employment for these foreign citizens specifying the terms, hours and wages to be paid to them when, in fact, defendant did not intend to provide employment for these foreign citizens during their visa term in the United States.”
The indictment stated that after “these foreign citizens were granted a CW-1 visa and entered the United States under false premises, defendant, and others known and unknown, acting on defendant’s behalf, required the foreign citizens to pay a routine tax of $194 every two weeks to A&A Enterprises. Defendant and his confederates demanded these foreign citizens pay this tax, despite A&A Enterprises’ failure to provide employment as outlined in I-129CW petitions, and if no tax was paid, A&A Enterprises would cancel and not seek to renew the CW-1 visas.”
Initially, through court-appointed attorney Robert T. Torres, Casupanan pled not guilty to the charges.
Magistrate Judge Heather Kennedy then released Casupanan on an unsecured bond in the amount of $1,000 with conditions, and scheduled his jury trial for Sept. 14, 2021 at 10 a.m.
On Friday, Aug. 27, 2021, defense attorney Torres asked the court to seal a motion that he had filed. “The motion contains confidential information that should not be publicly disseminated at this point in the proceedings,” he said.
Torres added that he had consulted with the prosecutor who represented to the court that the motion was unopposed.
