NEWARK -- A U.S. immigration manager for an Indian IT company is facing five years in prison after admitting his role in a foreign worker visa scheme, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman announced in a release Friday.

U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman speaks at a March press conference in Newark in this file photo.

According to Fishman, Hari Karne, 32, of Hyderabad, India, pleaded guilty in Newark federal court to a conspiracy to obstruct justice charge. Karne, authorities said, worked as a manager with SCM Private Limited in India, a company that had service agreements with two American IT companies, Virginia-based MMC Systems and SCM Data Inc., of Jersey City.

The two companies, Fishman said, would recruit foreign workers and sponsor them to obtain H-1B working visas in the U.S., which allow foreign workers with specialized skills to hold full-time jobs in the United States.

Working against the visa guidelines, authorities said the companies would create bogus payroll checks to make it appear as if the workers were full-time, but actually pay them only when they were placed with clients of SCM Data and MMC Systems.

In court Friday, Karne admitted that he helped carry out the scheme by advising foreign workers to pay the companies their gross wages in cash, authorities said. The companies then paid them back a smaller portion in order to create bogus payroll checks, they said.

Karne also admitted to helping create false leave slips as a way to cover up time periods when workers were not being paid at all, Fishman said.

Several others have been charged in connection with the scheme, and an immigration lawyer for the two companies admitted her role in it in court earlier this year.

When Karne is sentenced on April 3, 2016, he faces up to five years in prison, and a $250,000 fine, officials said.

Jessica Mazzola may be reached at jmazzola@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessMazzola. Find NJ.com on Facebook.