No other news outlet has done more to expose corruption in New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ 2021 campaign than THE CITY. Our investigations uncovered multiple straw donors centered around the New World Mall in Flushings, Queens. One low-wage worker there told THE CITY that her boss asked her to make out a check for $249 to Adams — and then reimbursed her with cash. A recent college graduate told THE CITY that his signature was forged on a $250 money order, and that his now-deceased father had also never given to Adams, even though campaign records show he had.
These “donors” are part of two clusters of suspicious contributions identified by THE CITY — and red-flagged by the campaign finance board — that may have netted Adams hundreds of thousands of dollars in public matching funds.
Months after THE CITY published its initial investigation, federal prosecutors raided the home of Adams’ chief fundraiser seeking to discover whether his campaign conspired with the Erdogan government to accept illegal contributions from Turkish foreign nationals. Months after that, federal prosecutors raided the home of one of Adams chief aides and prolific fundraisers, Winnie Greco, first profiled by THE CITY, and the New World Mall itself.
By combing through campaign records and shoe-leather reporting, THE CITY was able to reveal some likely targets of the federal investigation into Adams’ Turkey ties — including contributions from a non-profit controlled by Erdogan’s children and a Turkish university headquartered in Washington, DC.
Together, these investigations powerfully exposed how a campaign and donors took advantage of public financing laws intended to boost the power of small donors — but instead is all too easily corrupted by fraud, coercion and weak enforcement.
Our work on this front is more important than ever — because they’re still at it. In February, three contributors to Adams’ 2025 re-election campaign recounted in interviews to THE CITY that they — and in two cases their spouses — were reimbursed for a total of more than $10,000 in donations by hotel and construction executives in violation of state law.
