Washington: The US on Wednesday launched an investigation into alleged fraud in the H-1B and PERM work visas by several companies, with a federal labour official saying that Indian IT firm Cognizant is among the companies under scrutiny.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) under the Department of Labour has uncovered widespread schemes in which employers and labour brokers submitted fraudulent applications, exploited foreign workers through coercive wage-kickback arrangements, and undercut American workers by flooding the market with below-wage labour, an official statement said.

"We've already started to issue dozens of subpoenas; we are going to make sure that we track down every lead. We have whistleblowers talking about some of the biggest companies like Cognizant, who have been sort of, you know, in the chatter of issues with PERM and H-1B visas," Labour Department Inspector General Anthony D'Esposito told Fox Business on Wednesday.

The action has been taken under the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud led by Vice President J D Vance.

"These abuses undermine the integrity of Department of Labour programs designed to address genuine labour shortages - not to line the pockets of bad actors at the expense of American jobs," the statement said.

This investigation reflects the OIG's unwavering commitment to dismantling human trafficking and forced-labour networks that exploit the foreign guest worker visa system, the statement added.

The OIG is determined to root out every scheme that preys on vulnerable workers and takes jobs from American workers, it said.

This report was published from a wire feed. Apart from the headline, the EdexLive Desk has not edited the copy.