Brooklyn developer stole $4 million from immigrant clients and disappeared

A Brooklyn real estate developer has disappeared with more than $4 million of his clients' money. This put a group of 20 Asian immigrant families at risk of being evicted from their homes. New York Post.

According to the lawsuits, the families entrusted real estate developer Xi Hui “Stephen” Wu with deposits ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars each to buy apartments in their Bay Ridge apartment building, located at 345 Ovington Avenue.

But Wu, without giving the tenants ownership of their apartments, disappeared. As it turned out, he did not have New York State permission to sell apartments in the building.

“This is just devastating for us,” Chin How “Rei” Tan is outraged. He paid Wu $187 for the apartment that his 000-year-old father and 88-year-old mother have been living in since 80.

“It's terrible,” Tang, 47, rages about his parents having to move. “They were supposed to be here for another 30 years.”

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In addition to the cash for the condominium (half the total value of the apartment Wu was selling), Tang said, the family paid $7000 in condominium fees, the developer claims.

Edward Cuccia, a lawyer representing the families, said Wu ran a massive scam. He deceived more than 20 immigrant families - deprived them not only of their savings, but also of their hopes and dreams of their own home.

“Now these families are facing eviction,” Cuccia said.

“This is the most egregious case of real estate fraud I have ever seen in my over 30 years of law practice.”

Wu began attracting buyers in 2012, collecting amounts ranging from tens of thousands to $500 from each family as collateral for their homes. He promised to give them ownership of the apartments.

According to Cucci, the scammer appropriated various percentages of residents' deposits. And even took the full amount of the cost of the house from several families.

Wu never succeeded in transferring ownership to the tenants, who had moved into the building in the meantime. Instead, he stopped payments on a $6 million loan he took out to build apartments. And then, Cuccia claims, he fled with the deposits.

In May, residents won court decisions against Wu for the money they paid him.

But their future remains uncertain as lender Maxim Credit Group, LLC, foreclosed on the building, leaving the tenants open to future eviction.

The building will be put up for auction on July 28. After the purchase, the new owner can initiate the eviction procedure for tenants, the lawyer explained.

Tang hopes they can come up with something so that the tenants can continue to live in the building.

Ka Cheng "Chris" Chan said her mother, Cheng Peng Chu, 60, paid Wu $200. She gave all her savings for the apartment she moved into in 000.

“She's very angry,” Chan said of her mom, who works in a restaurant and immigrated to the US about 10 years ago. “We all know Wu. How could he do this to us?”

“He really betrayed us – he just left the project,” said Chan, who until recently lived in an apartment with her mom.

Lawyers for Maxim Credit Group, Wu and his attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.