#Abacus bank chinatown movie#
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Compared to the crimes of the big banks, which Vance refers to as 'less than ethical' and who, unlike Abacus, did not self-report, James said, 'It's all incredibly chump change.'Īlthough the grand, seemingly industry-wide scheme of subprime mortgage lending and collateralized debt obligation swaps was something Abacus wasn't involved in, the film shows how one untrustworthy employee and the unorthodox financing arrangements within New York's Chinese community led the New York district attorney's office to attempt to make a example out of Abacus. 'Ken Yu was corrupt, but in his corruption, he's getting a few thousand dollars here and a few thousand dollars there,' James explained.

#Abacus bank chinatown movie#

Given how small a stake Abacus had in the actual drivers of the collapse-and the fact that, unlike most banks, they self-reported the malfeasance they were ultimately prosecuted for-the movie paints a portrait of scapegoating writ large. Only 30 loans, all of which were performing well, were at the heart of the DA's case. 'I think he legitimately thought that real fraud was going on and something needed to be done about it,' James said in reference to the district attorney's motives for bringing the case. The film portrays both sides of the argument surrounding Abacus's case, with James not just interviewing the Sung family and their employees, but Vance and Polly Greenberg, chief of the city's Economic Crimes Bureau-along with jurors who were skeptical of the Sungs' claims of innocence and found it odd that the bank would lend hundreds of thousands of dollars to people whose entire incomes resided in Chinatown's robust cash economy. 'The fact that he related it in his indictment to 2008 and that there was a perp walk of these low-level, current, and ex-employees-all of those things I think are revealing of the motives here,' said James. The DA, Cyrus Vance Jr., brands the bank 'a criminal conspiracy fueled by greed.' The New York district attorney's office-which had been unable (or unwilling) to bring any of the 'too big to fail' banks to heel for their behavior-digs in on Abacus, indicting the bank and 19 of its staffers and humiliating many of them with a chain-gang parade that looks like it could have been from O, Brother, Where Art Thou?. When various managers at the bank realize an employee named Ken Yu has been taking bribes and falsely inflating customer income claims, the bank reports itself to the authorities. Intercutting his interviews with scenes from Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, James clearly tries to draw parallels between Sung and Jimmy Stewart's good natured, small-town banker in the classic film.Īt the film's start, Sung is 80 years old and still running the bank when the trouble begins.

#Abacus bank chinatown free#

Yet again, it is a story of the fat cats and the thin cats – and a reminder of how Milton Friedman’s maxim applies to the bank bailouts: socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.Founded in 1984 by Thomas Sung-a Shanghai-born lawyer who grew tired of the traditional banking system's reluctance to lend to Chinese Americans-Abacus is one of Chinatown's most significant financial institutions. James speaks to all the major players, including DA Cyrus Vance, who has the good grace to look embarrassed. Perhaps the truly incredible thing is that Chanterelle Sung, an employee of the DA’s office, is daughter of the Abacus bank’s founder, Thomas Sung, and had to withdraw from the case.

The court authorities even staged a grotesque “chain-gang” court appearance for the bank’s staff, in handcuffs and connected elbow restraints, shuffling miserably along, hiding their faces from the flashbulbs – unthinkable for black people and, of course, never considered for white people. But the DA was mentally measuring up this Chinese mom-and-pop firm for uniforms with little arrows. Big guns such as Goldman Sachs need only get a fine and a butterfly-wingbeat slap on the wrist. It was the first and only federal bank prosecution since BCCI in 1991.