(Source: Burlington Free Press) After years of touting Vermont's Regional Center as uniquely
suited to guarantee the legitimacy of homegrown EB-5 projects, the state
announced late Monday afternoon the center would be "winding down,"
taking on no new projects.
The Scott Administration's announcement comes as the federal
department that oversees the EB-5 program, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Service, filed a notice of intent to terminate Vermont's Regional Center.
The decision comes in the wake of one of the biggest fraud
cases in the history of the national EB-5 program. The accused are Ariel Quiros
and Bill Stenger, who managed EB-5 projects at Jay Peak and elsewhere in the
Northeast Kingdom. The partners were accused last year of misusing some $200
million of investor funds, with Quiros accused of benefiting personally from
about $50 million.
The federal decision to terminate the Vermont center was
based on "the alleged fraud perpetrated by Ariel Quiros and Bill Stenger,
for which the state is currently pursuing a civil fraud case," the
governor's office said in a statement.
The state says it received the notice of USCIS's intent to
terminate the center after the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation
submitted a report to the governor's office recommending that the regional
center be phased out. The regional center will continue to oversee existing
projects at Mount Snow and SouthFace Village at Okemo. Read complete story at Burlington Free Press
