FBI INVESTIGATES TEXAS INVESTOR EB-5 VISA PROGRAMS

FBI INVESTIGATES TEXAS INVESTOR EB-5 VISA PROGRAMS

By Jon Cassidy | Watchdog.org, 08/01/13

The FBI has been investigating whether a South Texas business that takes half-million dollar investments from foreigners and provides visas in exchange is actually a Ponzi scheme.

The USA Now Regional Center is one of 21 Texas businesses authorized under the EB-5 investor visa program to take cash in exchange for investor visas.

The FBI has investigated the McAllen business for more than a year on suspicion of wire fraud, money laundering and transportation of stolen property, according to search warrant affidavits found by The Monitor in McAllen.

Agents searched the McAllen office and the home of owners Bebe and Marco Ramirez.

The program is available to foreigners willing to invest $500,000 in a business that will create at least 10 jobs in two years in a high-unemployment area. However, the program has heavily criticized in recent months, particularly in the context of GreenTech Automotive, a company founded by Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe.

GreenTech has taken tens of millions of dollars that were supposed to create car-manufacturing jobs, but produced little to show for it.

The Associated Press reports:

Bank records obtained by the FBI show that on the same days investors transferred their $500,000 payments to USA Now, the money was routed through other bank accounts. Those accounts were used to buy a new Mercedes for the company’s owner, pay off the owner’s civil lawsuit settlement and at least once to repay an investor who wanted out, according to court documents filed this month in federal court in McAllen.

The FBI seized the Mercedes and a pickup truck that it said was purchased with an investor’s money, the court records show.

The FBI agent leading the case wrote in his request for the search warrants that he believed it was “a scheme executed by employees of USA Now Regional Center to defraud foreign investors by using investors’ funds for personal gain and other illegitimate manners without the investors’ knowledge or approval.” The agent labeled it a “Ponzi scheme,” showing how money from one investor was used to make interest payments to others.

Contact Jon Cassidy at jon@watchdog.org or @jpcassidy000.