Green card schemers 'out to dupe Chinese investors', says US congress advisory group

America's immigrant investor visa, hugely popular with wealthy Chinese, could be used to defraud applicants, a group that advises US Congress has warned.

"An imminent risk concerning the EB-5 programme is outright investor fraud. The EB-5 programme has recently been flooded by wealthy Chinese nationals," the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has said.

Under the scheme, foreign nationals and their family members can receive a US green card in exchange for an investment of US$500,000 in areas of the US with high unemployment rates, or US$1 million in other areas.

In Chicago for example, a so-called developer hoping to build a US$912 million hotel and convention complex was indicted last August on fraud charges for duping some 290 Chinese investors, the commission noted.

Although EB-5 investors could act on their own, they often turned to immigrant investor regional centres, which are for-profit organisations owned by companies or individuals, to help identify and vet investment projects that qualify for the EB-5 programme, it said.

"There are people in China claiming they are from one of these federally approved regional centres and saying, 'Hey, I have this escrow account set up. You, a Chinese investor, if you provide me some money now and end up not getting your green card, you'll get your money back'," an investment promotion official told the commission. The people then disappear with the money.