SEC: Payday loan scheme bilks investors out of millions

MIAMI (AP) — Federal regulators say the owner of a Miami-based payday loan company bilked hundreds of investors out of millions of dollars and repaid others with money he acquired from a Ponzi scheme. The Securities and Exchange Commission says in a complaint filed in September that Efrain Betancourt Jr. and Sky Group USA committed securities violations in a scheme that authorities described as “affinity fraud.” He has not been charged criminally. The Miami Herald reported the lawsuit on Tuesday. The SEC complaint says Betancourt spent much of the $66 million raised through promissory notes on his lavish lifestyle.