Abacus: Small Enough to Jail

I owe everything to George Bailey.

Help him, dear father.

First time I saw

"it's wonderful life,"

I had tremendous respect for George Bailey,

who is the main character.

He did so much good for the community.

Mr. and Mrs. Martini, welcome home.

Hooray!

George was lending money to the community residents

to buy houses...

Me Giuseppe Martini... I own my own house!

And that's exactly the same purpose

when we started a bank.

It was our motivation to help a lot of people,

a lot of immigrants.

Here you are, George. Merry Christmas!

This movie touches me so much.

The family, the friends.

I always watch it. Every year, I watch.

That makes me cry because that's the part...

I wish this story could end

the same way as "it's wonderful life"...

But in reality, it is not that simple.

Today, we are announcing the indictment

of 19 individuals

on charges including

mortgage fraud,

securities fraud,

and conspiracy,

as well as the indictment

of Abacus Federal Savings Bank,

a federally chartered bank that has been catering

to the Chinese immigrant community since 1984.

If we have learned anything

from the recent mortgage crisis,

it's that at some point these schemes unravel

and taxpayers can be left holding the bag.

The D.A. made such a big parade,

bringing people from Washington,

all these tough law enforcement officers,

and making such a big announcement

that we are part of the cause

of financial crisis of 2008.

Almost laughable.

Mr. Sung is entitled to his opinions,

but in Abacus' loan department,

mortgages were based upon false documentation.

We have evidence of conspiracy, larceny,

and systemic fraud.

If that prosecution goes through,

that bank is gonna go out of business.

There's no question about it.

They're gonna lose their charter,

and it's gonna enormously impact that community.

Too big to fail, you know, turns into small enough to jail,

and Abacus is small enough to jail.

When I walk around here, of course,

I feel very much at home.

Incidentally, this is a very tasty noodle shop

if you go in there.

I was born in Shanghai in the year 1935.

At the age of 16, I emigrate to the United States

and went to law school, and I moved to Chinatown.

There was not many Chinese lawyers,

and I knew I wanted to be a part of the community,

so I did a lot of pro bono work.

This...this building with the Chinese national flag,

this a Chinese community center.

And in there is...

I represented the association for years and years and years.

This association sponsored a school,

and I obtained the permanent charter

from department of education.

And people in the community,

older people particular, remembers me,

know what I've done.

Back when I was a lawyer, there was no bank

that was owned by Chinese and serving the Chinese.

This is Chinatown, New York City,

warm, colorful, cheerful,

a wonderful place for sightseeing.

This man is on his way to the bank.

What is about the bank that makes our man feel at home?

The very design... beautifully bright

with the primary Chinese colors,

and he sees home in the soft, sweet smile

of the teller.

At that time, banks in this community

had several hundred millions dollars of Chinese deposit,

and I went to a bank to try to borrow money,

but they do not lend money

and deal with the community.

He always told us stories

that they were willing to take his deposits,

but they weren't willing to give him credit, loans,

so that's why he started the bank

because he felt that wasn't fair

to the community.

I remember when we were children,

and my dad was excited about this venture

that he was gonna start,

and he involved us in the decisions

of what would be the symbol for the bank,

and I remember we would all try to design something.

Abacus, you know, is the Chinese calculator.

China regard Abacus as a national treasure,

so we say we'll name the bank Abacus.

Hello. Can you open for me?

We serve people who've never even dealt

with the banking system before,

and you try to bring them into the banking system.

An example of that is the safe deposit boxes.

Have you ever seen so many Bo... heh heh...boxes?

There are 8,000-plus boxes in this vault.

8,000.

The Chinese people, particularly the immigrants,

they rent houses in very tight quarters.

There's no place for them to place their valuables

except in a bank vault.

So it starts with the safe deposit boxes.

Then they're willing to put their money into the bank

and then let the money grow, and then later on,

they will take that money and use it to buy a home.

You get a clear sense of what your mission is

at the actual closing.

Many of the borrowers bring their whole family with them,

and they bring their children,

their grandmother,

and by the time they walk out, they're all superhappy,

and you feel good to be a part of that process.

We talked to Heather, right?

I remember her.

Where is she right now anyway?

Do you have the chicken feet in there?

Oh, ok. That's always special.

That's the chicken butt.

That's the butt. The chicken butt.

You don't want to eat that.

I like it. Oh.

She doesn't need the butt. She can eat it.

I never thought my girls would work in Chinatown

because we lived in greenwich, Connecticut.

Tom would be commuting every day, you know,

like, an hour and a half each way,

so he didn't see them that much in those days.

They had no idea, anything, not a faintest idea

about the Chinese community.

In fact, Heather still doesn't.

She hates the city, you know?

She's like me. We both have headaches,

and at home when we don't want them to understand,

we speak Chinese.

You always said to me,

"if you come work for the bank,

"the benefit will be you have

a 9-4 job."

9-4? He said that?

Because long time ago, people could

leave at 3:00 for the bank.

He said you could have children,

you could have a family.

You know what he said to me?

He said, "if you wish to work with me,

"remember, this is your own choice,

and don't think it's gonna be easy."

You gave it two different stories.

You know, people ask me

"so why in the world you wanted to get

into banking?"

It's not because I needed a job.

I was practicing law, I was busy,

but I said to myself, "it's time for me to do something

for the society."

That started from ye-ye's time.

Grandfather. My grandfather. My grandfather.

He always thought that was the honorable thing to do.

That's not unusual.

A lot of people in Chinatown, your generation,

they believed that was honorable

to be entrusted... to be trusted.

Entrusted with the public funds.

Yeah, that's right.

Do you have a copy of the payoff letter for me?

Yes, I do.

This whole 5-year ordeal began

in December of 2009.

I had a closing that day involving one

of our loan officers Ken Yu.

Ken Yu worked with us around 4 years.

The staff really liked him.

He was very popular, he had some charisma,

and he was doing a good job.

It was a normal closing

there was the sellers' attorney,

and there was the buyers',

but there was a lot of tension in the closing.

They weren't getting along.

They were arguing over things.

The attorney asked me a question