NEWSWORKS TONIGHT

Banktracker, a project of American University's Investigative Reporting Workshop, contributed to this report. There, you can find a profile of Borinquen's assets.

Two weeks after it was taken into conservatorship, the Borinquen Federal Credit Union in Philadelphia's Olney neighborhood is no more.

A woman standing outside the credit read the notice about the liquidation, then gasped. "Oh my God," she said. Dozens of customers gathered around the glass doors, peering with confusion at the notice, in English and in Spanish.

Two weeks ago, Borinquen was taken into conservatorship by the National Credit Union Administration. What the FDIC is to banks, the NCUA is to credit unions. They step in for failing credit unions and insure deposits.

"We very rarely liquidate a credit union. There's been 10 liquidations this year. At this point in the process of a conservatorship the members of a credit union really have nothing to worry about. Their deposits are insured. The credit union is operating as usual. All the services are still there," said NCUA spokesman David Small two weeks ago.

Borinquen, which is the indigenous name for Puerto Rico, served a low-income, Spanish-speaking community. It had about 7,000 members and about $7 million in assets. Yveliece Peralta, a customer, has become the unofficial spokeswoman amid the chaos surrounding its end, making sense of the legalese.

"The people here are poor," she says. "And here it says to call a legal service in Texas, but we are in Philadelphia."

Unless a customer has more than $250,000—the maximum amount the NCUA will insure—there's little reason to hire a lawyer. But that instruction is all the information pasted to the door. No phone number. No credit union employee. Some of the customers are illiterate.

"One thing we did was to ensure that we were communicating effectively. We understand this credit union has a high Spanish-speaking membership so we have translated all of the materials into Spanish to ensure that the members understand the best way possible," said Small.

Many members are on disability or collect Social Security. Some send money back to their loved ones. Others, like Usmara Torres, came here to get money for a plane ticket.

"My father is in critical condition and now I don't have the money to fly to Puerto Rico because they have my money. It's not fair, man," Torres said.

Borinquen's percentage of bad loans was about four times the national median. The cease and desist order noted "serious and persistent record-keeping problems and the failure to perform or obtain an annual audit."

"I can tell you that the NCUA doesn't take these things very lightly. It was a difficult decision but one that we had to make. Compared to the number of credit unions that exist, liquidations just do not occur that often," says Small.

Borinquen was the 11th credit union in the country liquidated this year. It was previously liquidated in 1986.