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.