Electric car maker misses debt payment to Mississippi

(AP) — Electric car maker GreenTech Automotive, which once planned to build 250,000 cars a year and invest $2 billion in an impoverished corner of Mississippi's Delta region, has missed a debt payment to the state of Mississippi.

The newspaper reported the statements were contained in a decision earlier this year denying a green card to a Chinese investor, rejecting company projections that GreenTech would increase employment to 125 this year and 250 by 2018.

Under the loan agreement that Mississippi signed with GreenTech in 2011, a default notice would let the state demand all money back immediately and possibly seize GreenTech's property.

Besides the $3 million loan, Mississippi also loaned Tunica County $1.9 million to buy the site for GreenTech.

The inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found last year that the department's current deputy secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, violated agency ethics policies but didn't break any laws when he intervened in visa proceedings for GreenTech and two other projects.