SEC v. Luca International Group, Yang and others (ponzi schemes, 2015)

Settled

Checked against the primary document on October 4, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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The SEC's July 2015 affinity-fraud case against Luca International Group and CEO Bingqing Yang ended with a consent final judgment against Yang on 9 June 2021 in the Northern District of California, which the SEC says fully resolves its lawsuit. It orders her to pay $209,672 in disgorgement, $64,579 in interest and a $425,749 penalty. A 2016 judgment had imposed $68.3 million in disgorgement on the Luca entities.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-23298
Date filed	2015-07-06
Date resolved	2021-06-09
Court	U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
Status	settled
Asset class	equities
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	Luca International Group, LLC (entity) ; Bingqing Yang (individual) ; Lei (Lily) Lei (individual) ; Yong (Michael) Chen (individual) ; Luca Resources Group, LLC (entity) ; Luca Energy Fund, LLC (entity) ; Entholpy EMC (individual) ; Anthony Pollace (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged	Advisers Act s.206 ; Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.15(a) ; Securities Act s.17(a) ; Securities Act s.5 (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques	Ponzi schemes

What was ordered

Civil penalty: $426k
Disgorgement: $210k
Prejudgment interest: $64.6k
Total relief: $700k
Alleged gain: —

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The complaint alleges Yang knew the company was losing money, projected returns of 20 to 30 percent, used new investors' money for sham profit payments, and diverted $2.4 million to buy a house. The main case against Yang and the Luca entities is litigated and unresolved. Pollace settled his small role for a $25,500 penalty, and in a separate administrative order broker Hiroshi Fujigami and Wisteria Global agreed to disgorge over $1.1 million, with Fujigami barred.

The $25,500 penalty belongs to Pollace alone; the record had presented it as the figure for the matter, with a status of settled and a defendant name ending "et al."

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes payments to earlier participants made from later participants' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

On 26 July 2016 the court entered a final judgment against Luca International Group, Luca Resources Group, Luca Energy Fund and several related relief defendants, enjoining them and ordering certain of them to pay $68.3 million in disgorgement. On 9 June 2021 it entered a consent judgment against Yang, who did not admit or deny the allegations, enjoining her from violating antifraud provisions of the Securities Act, Exchange Act and Advisers Act, barring her from soliciting securities purchasers or serving as an officer or director of a public company, and ordering $209,672 in disgorgement, $64,579 in prejudgment interest and a $425,749 penalty. The SEC says this judgment fully resolves the lawsuit. The money stored here is Yang's alone; the entity judgment is described only by the SEC's rounded figure, and the outcomes for the other individual defendants named in the complaint were not separately read.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary documents linked above. This page summarises the structured record and does not reproduce them.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

2015-07-06 Litigation release published
2021-06-09 Consent final judgment entered against Yang, resolving the case (N.D. Cal.)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Action	Agency	Filed	Technique	Penalty	Status
SEC v. Mark D. Hanf and Hoai-Nam Chu Phan (ponzi schemes, 2026)	SEC	2026-09-04	Ponzi Schemes	—	settled
SEC v. Leor Moshe, Jacob Goldman, Isaac Odes (ponzi schemes, 2026)	SEC	2026-08-13	Ponzi Schemes	—	filed
CFTC v. Goliath Ventures, Inc. and Christopher Delgado (ponzi schemes, 2026)	CFTC	2026-08-11	Ponzi Schemes	—	filed
SEC v. Goliath Ventures, Inc. and Christopher A. Delgado (ponzi schemes, 2026)	SEC	2026-08-11	Ponzi Schemes	—	filed
SEC v. Aras Investment Business Group S.A.P.I. de C.V. and others (ponzi schemes, 2026)	SEC	2026-07-24	Ponzi Schemes	$449k	judgment
CFTC v. Trevor L. Vernon and Argent Capital Management LLC (ponzi schemes, 2026)	CFTC	2026-07-07	Ponzi Schemes	—	filed

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.