A yearslong nightmare is finally over for the 20 families scammed into buying fraudulent condos in Bay Ridge. On Friday, Attorney General Tish James’s office announced that $4.2 million, plus a decade of interest, will be returned to Chinese immigrant families defrauded by developer Steven Wu. “This order returns money to the families Wu cheated and ensures he can never again exploit New Yorkers through fraudulent real estate schemes,” James said in a statement.
The saga started more than ten years ago, when Xi Hui “Steven” Wu, a well-known real-estate agent in the neighborhood’s Chinese American community, started advertising condos at 345 Ovington Avenue. Multiple families gave Wu what amounted to their life savings in down payments and mortgages for what turned out to be illegal units. The families moved into the five-story building, furnished their apartments, and generally went on with their lives — but Wu had never actually obtained city authorization to sell the apartments as condos, rendering all the deals void. Meanwhile, Wu pocketed the money — more than $5 million total — and when the building’s lender began foreclosure proceedings, he disappeared.
James’s office sued Wu in 2022 to try to get the money back. It’s a rare success story when it comes to these kinds of scams. In 2024, it was announced that the families were able to stay in their apartments after an advocacy organization bought the building in order to sell it back to the families for $50,000 per unit under a rent-to-own plan. The building was then set to become a cooperative with the families as owners of actual homes — not just the promise of one. And now, hopefully, they’ll get their money back, too.