Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm
A young Turkish woman once paraded in Turkey and US tech circles as a promising entrepreneur has been unmasked by US prosecutors as having built her rise on a web of fraud, forged documents and fabricated success stories, according to a sweeping superseding indictment unsealed in New York that details how she allegedly deceived investors and US immigration authorities to bankroll and legalize a life in America.
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York say Gökçe Güven, a Turkish national and founder of the New York–based startup Kalder Inc., orchestrated a months-long scheme to inflate revenue, fabricate business traction and forge letters from senior executives in order to extract roughly $7 million from venture capital investors and secure a coveted O-1A “extraordinary ability” visa to remain in the United States indefinitely.
The 10-page…