The Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly ended its probe of Usana Health Sciences (NASDAQ: USNA), and will not recommend any enforcement action, according (subscription required) to the Wall Street Journal.

Without question, this is a big victory for Usana, which has been the target of criticism from fraudster turned fraud fighter Barry Minkow. Minkow has accused the company of operating an illegal pyramid scheme, lying about the credentials of certain executives and directors, and illegally operating a multi-level marketing business in China while saying that the company had no distributors there on an investor conference call.

It's puzzling that the SEC has ended its investigation -- evidence presented on Minkow's Cheating in China website seems to indicate that Usana does have distributors in china, a lot of distributors in China. The pyramid scheme allegations aside, CFO Gil Fuller's denial of distributors in China seems to have been false.

In an email, Barry Minkow told BloggingStocks that "I respect the Securities and Exchange Commission and how hard they work at prosecuting and uncovering fraud for the public. I have not seen the letter in its entirety so I really cannot comment."

The SEC has decided not to act, but questions still remain. Class-action lawsuits on behalf of distributors are still pending and the allegations of a pyramid recruiting scheme may be more the jurisdiction of FTC regulators. And you also have to wonder why the company's auditor resigned last year.

This is quite a victory for Usana Health Sciences, but given that this is the same SEC that approved Enron's perversion of mark to market accounting, investors should remain skeptical.