The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued an EB-5 lawyer in California for acting as an unregistered broker and defrauding EB-5 investors. The Law Offices of Steve Qi & Associates allegedly charged their clients fees on EB-5 transactions and then also collected fees from regional centers.

The SEC's litigation release dated December 8, 2017 states, "...in addition to receiving legal fees from those clients, Qi and his firm also directly or indirectly received over $1.6 million in transaction-based compensation from the entities whose EB-5 offerings their clients purchased, which was not fully disclosed to the clients, in breach of the fiduciary, legal and ethical duties of Qi and his firm"

The SEC identified more than 70 individuals who had retained Qi's law firm and invested in EB-5 securities his firm recommended.