The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued a California businesswoman for offering fraudulent securities in failing gas and oil operations. These projects were represented as profitable and touted returns over 20% even though they were collecting mountains of debt. Investor fund were also diverted to purchase non-business-related luxury goods.

The SEC’s litigation release dated July 28, 2016 states that “Yang commingled investor funds to prevent the scheme from collapsing and used money from new investors to make sham profit payments to earlier investors… Yang and the Luca Entities allegedly targeted Chinese citizens who sought permanent U.S. residence through the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program”.

The SEC subsequently obtained a $68.3 million judgement against Luca International Group.