Sethi’s project stands out as the largest EB-B fraud case to date
An Indian American developer was sentenced to three years in federal prison for defrauding around 300 Chinese citizens who invested in his failed $900 million project, PTI reported.
The 32-year old Anshoo Sethi, whose project stands out as the largest EB-B fraud case to date, pleaded guilty in a Chicago court on Tuesday following which US District Judge John Z. Lee handed down the sentence. The judge also ordered Sethi to pay $8.8 million in restitution.
Sethi is the founder of A Chicago Convention Center LLC and in 2011, he raised money for a project to construct a hotel and convention center near the O’Hare International Airport through EB-5 visa program, which issues green cards to overseas investors who invest in qualified US projects.
He solicited Chinese nationals to invest $500,000 each in the project, and another $41,500 as administrative fees to his company, PTI quoted court papers. He raised approximately $158 million from more than 290 investors.
“Anshoo Sethi abused the EB-5 visa program and blatantly lied to investors and the United States government on a massive scale,” chicagobusiness.com quoted Assistant US Attorney Sunil Harjani.
“Overseas investors spent much time and energy making the difficult decision to invest in the Sethi project, and processing their visa applications – not knowing that the project was built on a bed of lies and forged documents,” Harjani said in a statement.