Lobsang Dargey
SEATTLE (AP) — A Bellevue developer has been sentenced to four years in prison for scamming hundreds of investors out of tens of millions of dollars for projects from Everett to Seattle.
The Seattle Times reports that Lobsang Dargey also was sentenced on Aug. 4 to three years of supervised release.
He had previously agreed to pay about $24 million in restitution.
Dargey grew up in Tibet, where he trained to be a monk. He fled to avoid persecution by Chinese security forces. He immigrated to the United States in 1997.
The case was one of the first in the country involving a federal law that allows foreign investors to get green cards in exchange for funding job-creating projects in the United States.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Dargey raised approximately $235 million in all, luring people in China with a “green card guarantee.”
Instead, he used some of the money to buy a $2.5 million house in Bellevue and on lavish shopping sprees.