Investors allege Miami operator took over $1.5 million in EB-5 scheme

Three foreign investors allege a Miami operator sold them unregistered securities for a US visa program, skipped his SEC filings, and has not returned over $1.5 million.

On June 25, 2026, three foreign investors sued Andrew B. Dover, a project developer, and a set of Odlum-branded companies along with Appalachian EB-5, LLC in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The complaint runs through EB-5, the program that lets foreigners pursue US status by investing in a job-creating American business. Nothing in it has been decided.

The core claim is straightforward. According to the filing, the investors wired money - the complaint cites $540,000, $530,000, and $540,000 - toward a North Carolina equestrian project, for a combined total the complaint puts at over $1.5 million. The complaint alleges the funds went to accounts Dover controlled through a set of LLCs, and that he then "treated the funds as his own, without accounting for them or any intention to return them to their owners."

The plaintiffs allege a "securities fraud scheme" that used "an EB-5 component to lure investors." Those are the filing's words. The complaint does not call it a Ponzi.

For advisors and compliance staff, the alleged misses are basics. The complaint says Dover filed one Form D - the SEC's notice for an exempt securities offering - in December 2017, citing a $192.5 million total offering. The plaintiffs allege the offering actually targeted the public through open websites, which they say defeats the private-offering exemption. They also allege that a new 2019 offering required a fresh Form D that, according to their search of the SEC database, never came.

It gets closer to home. The filing alleges Dover acted as an unregistered broker-dealer and investment adviser, says FINRA's database shows no broker's license registered for him, and brings counts under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and the Securities Exchange Act seeking to void the contracts.

Disclosure is the other thread. The plaintiffs allege Dover never disclosed a 2002 bankruptcy or a 2015 American Express suit over approximately $133,550 in card debt tied to one of his entities. Had they known, they say, they "would have turned down Dover's proposals."

The complaint also describes a webinar on May 28, 2026. The plaintiffs allege a project developer told investors he controlled the money but would not repay on any schedule. They flag conflicting figures from the presentation - $207 million attributed to Dover, $165 million to the developer - which the filing calls "an unaccounted gap of $42 million." The complaint notes those numbers were "cited as heard, which may not be accurate." That developer is named as a defendant on some counts but is not named in the central securities-fraud count.

The takeaway for practitioners is the unglamorous part of the job: file the right notice, register where required, disclose your history, document it all. This complaint is a map of the argument a plaintiff makes when it says you didn't.

The allegations have not been tested, and no court has ruled.