Corrupt Alliances: How Eric Adams Allegedly Let Foreign Powers Shape U.S. Policy for Campaign Cash

New York City corruption case shows striking similarities to Chinese cash-for-influence investigations in Canada and New Zealand and Australia

NEW YORK, United States — For New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the key to electoral victories was fundraising.

"You win the race by raising money. Everything else is fluff," the powerful U.S. politician once texted an aide, according to an explosive indictment unsealed Thursday.

"I have a 7 million dollar race," Adams continued. "I have a clear plan to raise it, and each night we are out executing the plan."

The indictment portrays Adams, a Democrat and former NYPD officer, as a politician eager to secure campaign funds, willing to travel the world to fill party coffers, crossing legal and ethical lines to win power, and in doing so, allowing corrupt powerbrokers in foreign lands to shape policy for American citizens.

The emerging story is one of systematic foreign interference, involving multiple foreign powers that exploited Adams's political ambitions to serve their own interests.

As the investigation progresses, it becomes clear that the financial support Adams received was part of an international system of favor-trading that tapped into global political networks, ultimately leveraging them to defraud American taxpayers.

In this sense, the Adams case aligns with a growing pattern across North America, particularly in Canada, where ongoing hearings in Ottawa suggest foreign governments and business interests have targeted politicians at multiple levels, from mayors to senior federal officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has been tied to “cash-for-access” fundraisers with Chinese billionaires.

The Bureau’s analysis suggests that Adams's case offers a disturbing glimpse into how hostile states use money, luxury, and manipulation to gain influence.

The case’s financial allegations reveal a complex and opaque transactional system where political contributions are concealed through straw donors, much like illicit money laundering schemes. The parallels between this system and similar cases of foreign interference in countries like Canada and Australia highlight the broader challenges democracies face with dark money infiltrating their political systems.

Adams is accused of using foreign donors to front illegal campaign contributions, which he amplified through New York City's public matching funds program, “compound(ing) his gains from straw contributions by using them to defraud New York City and steal public funds."

In this way, Adams’s campaign was able to secure over $10,000,000 in taxpayer funds. This scheme allowed Adams’s foreign backers to exert even greater influence over his political career, turning small, concealed contributions into a multimillion-dollar political war chest.

This method of laundering illegal campaign contributions—where foreign nationals use intermediaries and businesses under their control to mobilize armies of subordinate donors and conceal the true source of donations—mirrors tactics used in Chinese election interference schemes in Canada, according to The Bureau’s access to classified intelligence reports.

From Brooklyn to Manhattan

Adams’s dealings reportedly began in 2015 when, as Brooklyn Borough President, he started to mix with foreign officials.