The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against Linh Thuy Le and her husband, Trong Hoang Luu.
The SEC’s complaint, seen by FX News Group, was submitted at the California Central District Court, on October 15, 2025.
The civil enforcement action concerns an offering fraud perpetrated primarily against members of the Vietnamese and Latino communities in multiple states by defendants Le and Luu through their companies Inventis Ventures, LLC and Inventis Ventures Holding, Inc.
The SEC’s complaint alleges that, between March 22, 2022, and November 2023, Le raised at least $26.5 million with Inventis from at least 1,400 people in an unregistered securities offering. The true amount raised by defendants and the number of defrauded investors may be even higher due to many investments and payments having been transacted in cash.
Le and Inventis lured investors with false promises of guaranteed returns of either 15% per month or at least 360% per year, together with a return of principal after one year, if they invested a minimum of $5,000. Le also falsely told investors that Inventis would use their funds to invest in different “emerging projects” in its “investment portfolio,” giving different investors inconsistent descriptions of the use of funds and source of returns, varying from “real estate” and “health insurance investments” to claims that she had access to an unnamed bank that provided 40% returns.
She falsely told many investors that the investments were “guaranteed,” “safe,” or “insured.”
The SEC alleges that Le’s statements to investors were materially false and misleading because, rather than use investor money to engage in legitimate business activity, Le and Luu misappropriated the funds, spending investor monies for their personal benefit, paying referral fees, and making Ponzi-like distribution payments to earlier investors in an attempt to keep their scheme going.
Further, the complaint alleges that Luu, who knew Le was making these false statements to investors, facilitated and advanced the scheme by, among other things, signing more than 95% of the checks issued by Inventis, including more than 96% of the checks used to make approximately $16.5 million in Ponzi-like distribution payments to investors and to make approximately $1.5 million in referral fee payments to individuals who found new investors.
Like all Ponzi-like schemes, Inventis eventually collapsed and many of the investors abruptly stopped receiving the interest payments they had been promised and were never repaid their principal investment.
Even then, Le continued to make false and misleading statements to investors claiming that Inventis had to stop making payments only because of “bank audits” and “banking compliance issues.”
The SEC seeks injunctions against the defendants, as well as civil monetary penalties.
