F.B.I. agents on Thursday searched two houses owned by a close aide to Mayor Eric Adams of New York, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
The searches of the properties owned by the aide, Winnie Greco, were part of an investigation being conducted with prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn, the people said.
Federal agents on Thursday also executed at least one other search warrant at the New World Mall in Flushing, Queens, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. Mr. Adams has made regular appearances at the mall, including to deliver remarks at a Lunar New Year gala two weeks ago.
It was unclear what the investigation was focused on or whether it was related to Mr. Adams, who has been a subject of a separate criminal inquiry by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.
A prominent fund-raiser for Mr. Adams during his mayoral campaign, Ms. Greco has close ties to the Chinese community in New York City and was appointed as the mayor’s director of Asian affairs after he took office. She has traveled to China with Mr. Adams and was a champion of a building project in Brooklyn to install an arch in the Sunset Park neighborhood that was given to the city by Beijing.
It was not immediately clear on Thursday whether she had a lawyer. She could not be reached for comment.
An F.B.I. spokesman said Thursday that the bureau “was conducting law enforcement activity in the vicinity” of Ms. Greco’s houses on Gillespie Avenue in the Pelham Bay neighborhood of the Bronx and at the address of the mall, but declined to elaborate.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn — which has been scrutinizing the Chinese government’s activities in the United States, resulting in several high profile cases — said he had no comment.
Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, a Democrat in his first term, said on Thursday that Ms. Greco was on leave from her City Hall job. He said that…
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