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In this episode of American Greed, he was born at the top of the world and the

bottom of the ladder.

Lobsang Darjeet, a poor Buddhist monk from Tibet.

He comes to America with dreams of climbing that ladder and trading his

riches.

He was a force of nature. Well, he's a fascinating person.

He marries a woman who can open doors from a family of American sports

He's engaging.

He's unstoppable.

We have a very successful project, and I've done a really good job. I want to

thank you. This dude's doing stuff.

This dude's living the American dream and selling it to wealthy Chinese

investors.

A record number of Chinese are looking to get into the United States and they

are willing to pay big money to make it happen. He did something that crazy.

This was a fraud that was snowballing and just getting bigger and bigger and

of control.

$120 million are on the table and the dreams of 250 immigrant investors are

about to go up in smoke.

They would be asked to leave the country immediately.

they would be deported. And when the feds come calling, his own dream becomes

nightmare. Hold camera.

The former monk isn't talking, but American Greed has the inside story from

those who thought they knew him best.

He's a driven person where nothing gets in his way. If you're asking me, did he

need to be stopped?

Absolutely.

Dawn breaks on the upscale Seattle suburb of Bellevue.

Tucked into the hillside is a multi -million dollar mansion with a swimming

in the backyard and a Bentley in the garage.

It's the home of a prominent Seattle real estate developer named Lobsung

and his wife Tammy Agassi, the sister of tennis great Andre Agassi.

Lobsung and Tammy would appear to have it all.

But a knock at the door is about to change all of that.

So, lost and sleeping, I'm up early with the twins, and the FBI knocks on our

door.

Mr. Dargie came out in his underwear.

We told him to put some clothes on, and then we sat down and tried to talk to

Mr. Dargie.

The feds have a lot of questions for Lapsang, like how he financed his

and his Bentley.

What is he doing with his investors' money, and why is he lying about it?

Money was continuing to come in and being misappropriated. There's no way to

defend falsifying a bank statement.

And it was clear to us that there were going to be huge losses for investors.

On the same day...

Federal agents raid Darkey's offices, leaving his longtime colleagues stunned.

There's men and women and FBI windbreakers everywhere, pulling

desks, shoving stuff in boxes.

It was very scary.

There was probably 15 FBI agents looking at you, wondering what you did wrong.

Tammy Agassi is suddenly looking at her husband and wondering the same thing.

Our world blew up because I needed to know if I was married to a criminal.

Tammy will soon discover that her husband is more than just a common

His life is a corruption of the American dream.

It was, in all respects, an American success story if he didn't take a wrong

turn.

Born in 1973,

Lapsang Darji comes from stark beginnings.

The youngest of three sons toiling on a small Tibetan farm without electricity

or running water.

It's a far cry from a mansion in Bellevue.

From what I understand, Lapsang had a very, very hard upbringing.

I know that they were very poor, that he didn't even get his first toothbrush

until he made it to India at 19 or 20.

Grew up in a small hut. They would burn yak dung for fuel.

That humble.

At 13, Lapsang is shipped off to a Buddhist monastery to become a monk.

It's not the boy's choice.

It's economic necessity.

Conditions there are harsh.

Lapsang is lonely and eventually in great danger.

Over the past two years, the Chinese army has clashed with local people four

times. Tibetan monks led demonstrators in demanding independence from Chinese

rule. The uprising in Tibet sends Lapsang running for his life.

He trekked 2 ,800 miles across the Himalaya Mountains to find refuge at the

Dalai Lama's Kirti Monastery in Dharamsala, India.

For a devout Buddhist monk,

Kyrgyz is a holy place.

But Lobsang finds another calling here.

Business.

He has a gift for haggling at the local market that earns him the formal role of

business monk.

You don't really think of ambition when you think of Tibetan monks. And he was

the business side of the monastery.

And so maybe that started a little seed of being an entrepreneur.

being in charge of the money of the monastery.

As business monk, Lapsang befriends Western travelers visiting the

While the tourists see a charming young holy man, he may see a ticket to pursue

his true calling in America.

One of the Western travelers that he met, he would cold call her all hours of

the day.

And finally, just because he badgered her to death, she finally said okay and

sent a letter of invitation.

Dargie's ticket is punched and his bags are packed. The enterprising young

business monk is on his way to America.

In this strange new land of milk and honey, Dargie is broke, but wide -eyed

ambition. He sees freedom, wealth, and opportunity all around him, and he wants

some. He gets here to America, and it's like, hey, man, this is like a circus.

Everything's gravy after what I've been through.

Joe's lab, Dargie's friend and former vice president, has a front -row seat to

his transformation.

Rules? Sure, I'll obey the rules, but I don't necessarily know all the rules,

and I'm just going to go whole hog. I'm going to do everything I can.

I'm going to be unstoppable.

In Seattle, Lobsang finds many of the locals sympathetic to the plight of an

exiled Tibetan monk.

With their help, he picks up odd jobs.

He's known around town as the painting monk.

I actually know a realtor who knew him as the painting monk and how he would

carry his ladder and paint on the bus, which was against all the rules.

And before long, he puts down the paintbrush and picks up a phone, selling

commercial phone service.

He would cold call all day until his whole face would be red, his ear would

red. But they said he always closed the deal at the end of the day.

A closer earning enough to buy a small house.

And with roots now planted in America, Dargie sheds the robes that never really

fit.

Poverty and chastity?

Why not give money and women a try?

And a chance encounter with Tammy Agassi in 2003 offers up just the kind of

woman he's looking for.

I was executive director for a non -profit in Seattle. As part of my job, I

a lot of relationships with a lot of people who were very philanthropic.

Tammy rubs elbows with wealth and power, and her brother is a superstar.

You've often said, Andre, that your sister Tammy is your best friend.

Do you think he knew that your brother was a sports superstar?

For sure he knew my brother was a sports superstar.

And at the beginning, I thought it was really refreshing because he pretended

that he didn't know.

At the time, her brother, Andre, is the number one ranked tennis player in the

world.

Opportunity is knocking, and the fearless young salesman is dialing.

He proceeded to cold call me for over a year to go on a date.

This was the call. Hello, Tammy, this is Austin. You want to go to dinner

sometime? He was very aggressive. He had no understanding of protocol.

You shot him down. He acted like he didn't really register it and would tell

to call him if you wanted to go to the movie sometime.

After a year of saying no, Tammy finally says okay already.

And much to her surprise, resistance gives way to love.

Well, he's a fascinating person.

He's highly intelligent. He's very charismatic.

He knows how to live in the present. He doesn't adhere to any social protocol,

which makes him hilarious.

Lobsang closes perhaps the biggest deal of his life when the couple marry in

December 2004.

Now headed for U .S. citizenship in a well -connected family, Lobsang is set

to carve out his own slice of the American pie.

Looking back, Tammy now wonders how much of the groom's affection was heartfelt

and how much was hustle.

I think Lobson is an opportunist.

It doesn't mean that he didn't care about me, but I think his eyes lit up

the circle that was around me.

Up next.

Finally, I want to thank my wife. I know she's sitting there.

Charity begins at home. For this hustler, so does greed.

At the time, I didn't think anything of it. We were building a life together.

Looking back, that's flat out insane.

And later, where does a young American entrepreneur go to raise capital?

Communist China, of course.

Cash -heavy Chinese increasingly want U .S. citizenship.

He was offering a green card guarantee, and he sold them on the American dream.

In Bellevue, Washington, Lapsang Darjeet chases a new dream, real estate

development, with his new wife Tammy as his angel investor.

The second we got married, he had quit his job, lived off my salary for a year

and a half, and started pulling money out of my asset to buy real estate.

He convinces Tammy to mortgage her house, taking out a loan of $300 ,000

her equity.

At the time, I didn't think anything of it. We were building a life together.

Tammy is not the only one in the Agassi family charmed by Lapsang. Her father,

Mike, immigrated to America from Iran and sees in Lapsang a younger version of

himself.

He invests $300 ,000 with his son -in -law.

The young developer gets to work buying and renovating old buildings in the

working -class town of Everett, Washington.

And they are happy to have him.

The city was happy because Lobsang had potential. You bring in a young,

ambitious, aggressive developer, they're going to be happy. It's good for the

city. In 2008, he graduates to new construction with a large residential

retail complex.

He calls it Potala Village, named after Potala Palace in Tibet.

once home to the Dalai Lamas.

Lapsang funds the project by raising $22 million through Tammy's personal

connections and a bank loan.

He got a loan, you know, in 2008 when no one was getting loans or it was very

difficult to get loans, especially, you know, for millions of dollars to build a

building. Most developers were kind of curling up into the fetal position at

that point. And he's like, no, we're going to do this thing. And so...

We did.

He built it out when most people were not building.

He kind of got a name for himself at that point of like, this dude's doing

stuff.

And though he is no longer a monk,

Buddhism is still a part of his life and part of his brand.

Potala Village is adorned with symbols that play well here in the progressive

Seattle area.

where Darjeel's heritage gives him cachet.

He was very spiritual.

He would bring in monks.

When he'd buy a new construction site before the groundbreaking, that would be

part of the ceremony where they'd come out and bless the ground.

It was really important to him to have that kind of energy in his projects.

Probably some of it was just natural to him to do. Some of it was probably also

a little bit of marketing.

This is what I would say about Lafayette's Buddhism and how it benefits

When it provides an opportunity for him, he makes the right choice.

When it doesn't provide an opportunity for him, he can weaponize that Buddhism.

I need to follow my karma and let go and move on. He can switch back and forth

from that dimension all day long.

But Lobsang's dedication to the discipline of non -attachment is about

to the test.

Good luck!

Kirkland, Washington is only 20 miles south of Everett, but in the real estate

game, it's a world away.

For his next venture, Dargie eyes this quiet, upscale town and a plot of prime

real estate, a stone's throw from Lake Washington.

He commits to buying the property for $8 .6 million and pitches another high

-density residential project.

fully outlined in his blueprints and striking promotional materials.

But this time, he hits a wall and learns a new American concept.

NIMBY. Not in my backyard.

Developing in Kirkland is nowhere like developing in Everett. He was cramming a

lot of units into the property, just like he would do in Everett, and that

not go over well with the community.

They basically said no.

Dargie's business monk routine rings hollow with the Tony residents of

They are turned off by the size of the project and the aggressive style of the

builder.

He would stand up at meetings, they would voice concerns, and he would bark

them and say, you don't need to worry about that, versus addressing their

concerns. If he would have courted them the same way he courts an investor,

he probably could have resolved a lot of these concerns. But instead, he was a

bull in a china shop.

Darjeet lops horns with the local citizen group, and his building permits

blocked. The conflict escalates, and Lapsang digs in, deploying both lawyers

monks to the battleground.

Lawsuits, complaints, him flying in bunks to unearthed... demons in the

so he could get his permit.

It was a constant source of needing to come up with money.

So it was time and energy and expense that I think he would have probably not

gone into had he known what he was getting himself into.

However, once he was into it, there's no backing out.

Dargie's dreams are sinking in Kirkland and he needs to come up with money to

keep his enterprise afloat.

In a strange twist of fate, he's about to get a lifeline from the country that

once oppressed him.

A record number of Chinese are looking to get into the United States, and they

are willing to pay big money to make it happen. They're doing it through an

investor immigrant visa program that's called the EB -5 program.

Dargie hears about an obscure government program called EB -5.

EB -5 is the technical name for the program, which was designed to trade job

growth for U .S. citizenship.

Under EB -5, foreign nationals from countries all over the world can earn

permanent residency or green card status for themselves and their families.

To qualify, they must invest at least $500 ,000 in a job -creating American

venture. But the key is that that money actually be spent, all of it, on the job

-creating enterprise.

And so the fundamental requirement is that all $500 ,000 goes to create jobs.

Darjeel's mind lights up. He knows that China is full of wealthy entrepreneurs

who covet American residency.

The global business of passport portfolios, this is where the wealthy

portfolio of passports, is booming. But should we sell passports? We absolutely

should. Investment is good. Creating jobs is good.

America has set the table for Lobsang Darjeel.

He gets here to America and it's like, hey man, everything's gravy after what

I've been through.

And he's about to turn his old nemesis into the ultimate gravy train.

Next on American Greed.

Dargie puts a huckster spin on EB -5, calling it a green card guarantee.

What could possibly go wrong?

From the very first check that he got from an investor, he was essentially

stealing from the project.

In August 2011, Lobsang Dargi is approved for a federal program called

EB -5.

It's a lifeline connecting him to millions of dollars from foreign

eager to become American residents.

These investors were not primarily drawn to invest to make money. The main

motivation of immigrant investors in this is the green card. They want to be

able to move to the United States.

Darjeet lures EB -5 investors with glossy promotional materials for a huge

project in Everett, Washington.

He calls it the farmer's market, an inviting mixed -use building of

retail space, and a hotel.

The estimated cost to build is $50 million, and Darjeet plans to raise most

that from Chinese investors.

He built the argument that he needs to go to China for a month.

I would ask him,

Who do you know in China? This guy had three contacts in China. He dropped

himself in China and built an empire.

Darjeet gets the ball rolling in China by paying fees to Chinese migration

agents who connect him to a city stream of prospects, people with dreams of

immigration just like his.

He speaks Mandarin.

So he can communicate directly with investors.

And he got them very interested because he had a great story to tell.

Federal prosecutors see things a little differently.

We felt that Mr.

Darjeet used his immigration status as a tool to help him enable his fraud. And

knowing that their dreams were similar to his dreams, he took advantage of that

to make money for himself.

Darjeet's sales pitch is great.

But it's riddled with false claims.

He was offering a green card guarantee.

What he was promising people in all different ways in his written materials

that if they invested with him, he would get them permanent residency in this

country. And there's just no way that Mr. Darjeet could have guaranteed a

card because that is given by the U .S. government.

But the lure of Darjeet's life story and his so -called green card guarantee is

powerful.

In March 2012, Dargi bags his first Chinese investor and promptly begins

fast and loose with their money.

Days after receiving that very first check from an investor, he was spending

money not on the projects he was supposed to be spending them on, but on

personal projects that were running out of money and that he was trying to

salvage. Dargie illegally diverged $306 ,000 of that first $500 ,000

investment to other uses, especially the loan surrounding his Kirkland property

and his mounting legal bills, which now exceed a quarter million dollars.

We found pretty early on that Mr. Dargie's Kirkland project had created

significant issues for him. We also saw him spending a lot of money on personal

items, and so we had concerns because... there was a very significant risk that

he was personally profiting from this fraud as well.

Lapsang Darji has flipped the script on his life story.

The country that once oppressed him is now bankrolling his American dream.

Over the next six months, he raises $41 million from 82 Chinese investors.

and an additional $3 .7 million in development fees.

And while most of the Chinese capital is actually going to build the farmer's

market, in the EB -5 game, it's got to be all or it's nothing.

So the main requirement is that all of the money had to stay in the project. So

any time that the promoter, like Mr. Dargie in this case, would divert that

money to either his own project...

or his own personal spending, that would mean that the capital contribution was

misused and would have serious negative consequences on the immigrant investor's

ability to get a green card.

As investments pour in, Dargie's misuse of the money multiplies.

He even uses EB -5 funds to purchase a $2 .5 million mansion in Bellevue for

himself and his family.

You helping Daddy cut the grass?

At the time, his wife Tammy has no reason to doubt that Lapsang is anything

other than an all -American husband, father, and provider.

Say thank you, Daddy.

I didn't care how much he was raising.

Buildings were being made. He was doing his thing.

When you ask if my lifestyle improved, my lifestyle improved for the fact that

didn't have to worry about certain camps I wanted to put my kids in.

But was I walking around in designer clothes? No, he was.

Not me. I was mom.

But Dargie is now providing for his own family by putting his investors and

their loved ones at risk.

82 investor families could have their pending green cards canceled if Dargie's

fraud is discovered.

These investors put their trust in Mr. Dargie.

to live the American dream. They had often sold all of their assets in China,

had moved to the U .S., had put their children in school, had purchased a

here, and were really relying upon him to do what he had promised that he was

going to do.

And so he clearly made the deliberate decision not to follow through with that

promise, but instead to put the money in places that benefited him.

To say that the stakes are high is an understatement, and they are about to

triple in scope.

Next on American Greed, Lapsang Dargi's business and his fraud grow to new

heights.

Honey, I think I have to buy a Bentley for clients. The next day there's a

Bentley in my driveway.

Lapsang Darji is having no trouble recruiting investors for his first EB -5

funded real estate project called the Farmer's Market.

So he decides, why not launch a second?

Lapsang brought up the skyscraper subject.

We were well into building the Farmer's Market.

Then the thought of like, hey, let's do a tower.

Darji's promotional materials for investors showcase his plans.

to build a 41 -story skyscraper in downtown Seattle.

It's also named after Potala Palace.

He calls it Potala Tower.

It's an undertaking that is both hugely ambitious and risky.

It's just a much more complicated, high -pressure situation.

And I wore a long song that's like, hey, we're going from minor leagues to major

leagues here. This is, you know, completely a step up, and we're not

it yet.

The tower is budgeted at $190 million.

Darjeel plans to fund the project mainly through Chinese investors while

promising to invest $30 million of his own capital.

To attract investors, Darjeel repeats his farmer's market EB -5 playbook with

another round of trips to China. And he's traveling in rarefied air.

EB -5 investors were not middle -class Chinese.

These are the upper class of China.

These people are entrepreneurs.

They're business owners.

They're millionaires. They expect nice things.

They don't go out to a crummy restaurant.

They don't expect to get picked up in a smelly pickup truck from a construction

site. If Dargie is going to play with this crowd, he'll have to pay.

He illegally pulls funds out of the EB -5 accounts to spend lavishly on his

investors to be.

He courts them with junkets to Las Vegas casinos.

elaborate dinner, and the purchase of a Bentley for airport pickup and tour.

And he said, honey, I think I have to buy a Bentley for client. I can't send

driver in the Range Rover.

Really? You're thinking about that?

Yeah. The next day, there's a Bentley in my driveway.

This former monk, who once didn't even own a toothbrush, is now closing deals

his chauffeured $200 ,000 car.

That was not a legitimate excuse to be spending the money in that way. And so

when he chose to take money that was supposed to go to create jobs and build

these projects and spend these on his own promotional business expenses to try

and get new investors, he was essentially stealing from the project.

Darjeet raises $86 million from 171 Chinese investors.

But his promised contribution of $30 million goes unfulfilled.

In August 2014, Gargi holds a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Potala Tower.

When crews broke ground on this Belltown construction site, there was so much

pomp and circumstance, even the mayor and actor Tom Skerritt were there.

Far removed from the smoke of Yat Dung fires, Lapsang Gargi, builder of a

skyscraper, is rubbing elbows with players at the highest levels of

power.

But despite all his success in America, he is still restless, haunted by

nightmares from his tormented past in Tibet.

You're seeing somebody lose it in the middle of the night, and I had no idea

what Lobson was going through or what he was struggling with. It wasn't until

many years later that he actually acknowledged he's struggling with PTSD.

Dargie's nightmares are well -founded.

By now, he's diverted nearly $17 million from the EB -5 accounts to other

projects, along with millions more for perks like his mansion, his limousine,

and entertaining investors.

On the shores of Lake Washington, he's lost the Kirkland lawsuit.

The chanting monks and crippling legal fees were all for naught.

And while he's come so far and flown so high, he's about to crash.

Up next on American Greed.

The FBI knocks on our door. And our world blew up. Because I need to know if

was married to a criminal.

Want more greed?

Follow us on Instagram.

Connect on Facebook and listen to the American Greed podcast wherever you get

your podcasts.

We'll be right back.

In the spring of 2015, developer Lapsang Darji is in the midst of two massive

projects under the federal government's EB -5 program.

Chinese nationals have invested more than $120 million in the projects in

to gain U .S. residency.

This man was working all angles for anyone who can benefit him.

We have a very successful project, and I've done a really good job. I want to

thank you.

But the high -flying developer is beginning to pique some suspicion in

Acting on a confidential tip, federal authorities get a search warrant for

Dargie's bank record. They quickly find proof that he's raiding the EB -5

accounts for unauthorized illegal spending.

So as we started to look through the bank records, we noticed that there were

large number of cash withdrawals at casinos.

which was a red flag because that's not what you typically expect to see in a

business account.

And then we also saw that money was being diverted for the personal purchase

Mr. Dargie's house.

To fill shortfalls in his EB -5 accounts, Dargie falsifies a bank

qualify for a $25 million loan.

He needed to show that he had a certain amount of liquidity.

And to do that, he doctored an HSBC bank statement to the tune of over $9

million, when in reality the account had about $440 ,000 in it. And there's

really just, there's no way to defend falsifying a bank statement.

By now, Dargie's finances are in free fall, and all distress is finally

up with him.

I've felt mental decline big time.

He was so chaotic.

There was a time when I only spoke to him first thing in the morning.

The rest of the day was me hanging up on him.

Call me back when you're coherent.

Click.

In the dawn's early light of August 25, 2015,

Lobsang Darje's American dream officially becomes a waking nightmare.

when federal investigators arrive at your doorstep.

So, lost and sleeping, I'm up early with the twins, and the FBI knocks on our

door.

Mr. Dargie came out in his underwear.

We told him to put some clothes on, and then we sat down and tried to talk to

Mr. Dargie.

And I watched him defend himself for maybe 45 minutes, an hour, because I

to know if I was married to a criminal.

He said he was allowed to take all this money as developer fees.

The loans between the entities with the EB -5 money was allowed. Everything was

disclosed.

He literally said to her, I'm happy to work with you. Come back on Friday after

my investors leave and I will show you everything.

And she said, that's not going to happen. You need a criminal attorney.

So what happened after that?

Our world blew up.

That same day, investigators have a court order to freeze Dargie's assets.

And the FBI executes search warrants at his two offices.

Men and women and FBI windbreakers everywhere, pulling computers off desks,

shoving stuff in boxes. It was very scary.

There was probably 15 FBI agents looking at you, wondering what you did wrong.

So I just kind of like stand in a corner with some of the other consultants that

were sharing that space. And I'm like, what's going on here?

Dargie's employees are rattled by the FBI searcher. But investigators conclude

that he alone orchestrated the fraud.

Mr. Dargie was the only person who knew the entire story.

He kept most employees in their specific areas and they didn't know the whole

picture. At issue is the man who owns this Bellevue house.

The SEC has filed a complaint and is seeking a restraining order, alleging

Darjeet built 250 Chinese investors out of millions of dollars.

With his assets frozen, all of Darjeet's company activities abruptly cease.

Dozens of construction and development personnel drop everything.

Today, we found just three workers on site after legal papers have put the 41

-story Fatala Tower in limbo.

Boom, they just shut it down. All the equipment on site was just frozen. There

were leases on that equipment.

I was in charge of paying every single bill for all the buildings. I couldn't

pay anybody. I couldn't pay payroll. I couldn't pay payroll taxes. I couldn't

anything.

And even worse for the investors, the EB -5 status of both the farmer's market

and tower projects are revoked.

For 253 investor families, the dream of permanent American residency is suddenly

in extreme peril.

There was a significant fear from each of the investors.

They would be asked to leave the country immediately.

They would be deported.

Investigators totaled up the loss to investors at a whopping $24 million.

Four months later, Dargie is under extreme duress.

He suffers a violent nervous breakdown and attempts to ingest a pile of pills.

He was sitting on the couch, starting to rock, felt his whole body itching.

Hold me, hold me, hold me. He's rocking, he's rocking.

Eyes glossed over like a zombie.

The next thing I knew, he walked back to the bedroom and just started downing

pills.

I called 911 and he got put in a cop car and he was...

Hallucinating. He thought he was on his way back to China, that he was going to

prison in China.

He got into the psych ward. He saw things shooting at him.

He was gone. He was mentally gone.

No camera.

Next on American Greed, the price of Dargie's fraud becomes personal.

If I didn't have family to help me and support me, we could have been homeless.

After a severe mental breakdown and weeks in psychiatric care, Seattle

Lapsang Darjeet returns to relative health. But he still has to face the

magnitude of his business crimes.

I didn't meet Lapsang before the SEC came knocking at his door with the FBI.

I'm sure that prior to that day, he was a force of nature. The Lapsang that I

met was more reserved and, in many respects, defeated.

Bradley Scher led an effort to take over development of Darjeel's EB -5 projects

and save them from total collapse.

To help cover the $24 million loss he's foisted on his investors, Darjeel

surrenders his majority equity stake in both the farmer's market and the tower

projects.

He said his mission now is not to make any money out of the project, but to

sure that the EB -5 investors were repaid and that they get their green

Lopsang Darjeet, refusing to talk as he left federal court.

He had just agreed with the U .S. attorney to plead guilty.

Although he still claims ignorance of his wrongdoing, Darjeet pleads guilty to

charges of wire fraud and lying to the U .S. government.

While prosecutors seek a prison sentence of 10 years, Darjeet's family floods

the judge with more than 70 letters of support from his friends, contractors,

and Tibetans all seeking mercy.

Lapsang's former vice president of construction, Joe Slab, submits one of

letters.

I thought that there was kind of an injustice being done to him. I

that if he had been warned, you know, with a strongly worded letter from the

SEC, hey, cut out what you're doing, he would have cleaned up his act. People

had accused him of running a Ponzi scheme, and they're like, no, he wasn't

running a Ponzi scheme. He was building buildings.

Prosecutors counter Dargie's letters of support with letters of their own from

jilted Chinese investors who feel betrayed by Dargie's fraud.

Many of these were people who had sold their homes, taken their kids out of

school in preparation to move to the United States.

Many of them did move to the United States. And then they received notices

the government saying, your money was spent improperly, and so we're planning

cancel your application.

On August 4th, 2017, Judge Robert Lasnik takes pity on Dargie.

Instead of 10 years, he gets four.

So he goes off to prison.

And I'm left with two -year -old twins and a 10 -year -old living off the

generosity of my brother.

Tammy's brother, former tennis champion Andre Agassi, keeps the family afloat.

And while in prison, Napsung convinces Tammy that divorce is necessary to

her and their children from his $24 million restitution.

And he said, we have to get divorced to protect you financially.

We will go through this together, but I don't want you to worry. I know how to

make money. I will pay back your family.

While Lovesong does time, his former EB projects are completed by new

developers, and their EB -5 status restored.

As for the Chinese investors, the vast majority are being made whole with their

investments recouped and green cards awarded.

The story would appear to be on course for a happy ending when Lapsang earns an

early release from custody in 2020.

But soon after he's in street clothes, another shocker.

Come to find out, the moment our divorce was final, this guy secretly gets

married. Turns out that divorce wasn't just to protect Tammy. It also freed him

up to secretly marry a wealthy Chinese woman.

It was diabolical.

Had I known what this guy was capable of or what he was doing, I wouldn't have

been visiting him.

I wouldn't have paid his legal fees.

I wouldn't have done any of that.

Lapsang Darji came from nothing and rose to extraordinary heights of success.

It was tragic that someone who had come from difficult origins

and understood the importance of coming to this country and getting citizenship

and what that can mean, that he sort of turned that on its head and exploited

that. And when one of his projects hit a snag, he just decided to defraud all of

these immigrant investors who had placed not just their money in his hands, but

in fact their whole future.

No one invested more in Lapsang Darjeet and his wife Tammy.

She gave him 16 years of her life and lost her assets defending him in court.

And now she believes that he has taken all he can from her and he is moving on

in more ways than one.

So Loftus told me he doesn't like this country. He never should have left

He belongs back in Tibet.

He has told other people I know he wants to go back to China and do big business

in China.

And I believe firmly that's what he's planning.

He's actually far more comfortable moving forward and looking forward.

I need to follow my karma and let go and move on.

Which means good luck to me and the kid.

For now, Lapsung and his new wife remain in the Seattle area.

Tammy won't be surprised if the restless Seattle monk detaches from America and

vanishes into the same mountain mist from which he came.