A Wisconsin woman is accused of defrauding dozens of investors and misappropriating more than $4 million of their money.
Civil complaints from both the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission came down for Kay Yang on Wednesday.
Federal authorities claim Yang defrauded roughly 70 investors starting back in April of 2017. A majority of them are Hmong Americans in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
The SEC complaint stated Yang raised $16.5 million through the unregistered offer and sale of securities by her two companies AK Equity LLC and Xapphire Fund LLC.
Yang was accused of falsely representing how she would invest the money, her track record, and her trading strategy.
Court documents allege Yang took more than $4 million and spent $1.5 million on real estate, $790,000 on her family's living expenses, $585,000 on personal and family travel, including a trip for 60 people to Maui, and $313,000 on luxury cars.
Yang is the vice president of 5XEN Inc. which runs the 5XEN Asian Super Market in Milwaukee.
TMJ4 News stopped by Yang's Mequon home for comment, but no one answered.
The SEC claims Yang's fraudulent scheme collapsed and most of her investors did not receive anything close to their promised returns while some lost their entire investment.
Federal authorities also allege Yang wrongly used some of the money to repay investors from a previous venture. Yang's husband, Chao, is named in the complaint for receiving money from the fraud.
