FBI agents exit a house associated with Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao during a raid in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, June 20, 2024. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
OAKLAND — The FBI served a search warrant Thursday morning at the home of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, part of surprise raids centering on a politically influential family in charge of the city’s contracted recycling company.
Investigators hauled numerous boxes out of Thao’s Lincoln Highlands house while also storming three properties tied to the Duong family, who own California Waste Solutions. It all came just days after a recall effort targeting the first-term mayor qualified for the November election, leaving local political observers stunned.
The FBI in a statement confirmed that it was “conducting court authorized law enforcement activity on Maiden Lane and Viewcrest Court” yet was “unable to provide additional information at this time.” Public records link Thao to the Maiden Lane home.
A person staying in the Lincoln Highlands neighborhood told this news organization that she awoke at 6 a.m. to the sound of FBI agents yelling, “Open the door! Open the door!” at the residence next door, where she said Thao lives.
“I thought it might be a domestic disturbance or something,” said Nina Medina, a retired San Diego police detective. “But later, agents were going in and out of the residence with gloves on.” Another person staying with Medina on Maiden Lane said she saw a man being escorted out of the residence by agents, but that he was not detained.
A call to Thao by this news organization was not returned Thursday. Attempts to reach the Duongs were not successful.
“I was shocked when I turned on the news this morning. I do not know what is going on,” Councilmember Carroll Fife said in an interview. “I don’t want to get sidetracked by something sensational that none of us have any control over. My goal is to be the leadership needed in the city and continue to move Oakland forward.”
The raids came two days after organizers of a recall targeting Thao announced they had submitted enough valid signatures to get the question on the November ballot. Hours after the raids began, the recall’s leaders called on Thao to immediately resign, issuing a statement calling on “the numerous individuals and organizations that endorsed Mayor Thao to speak out on these recent events.”
Loren Taylor, who finished second to Thao in the November 2022 election, lamented how the raids were “just one more distraction” that had turned the city’s attention away from more pressing matters.
“Oakland is dealing with so many issues and so many challenges,” Taylor said. “We need to have leadership that is 100% focused on Oakland and solving those challenges.”
The raids came just hours after what appeared to be the largest mass shooting in Oakland history. Fifteen people were injured in a shooting Wednesday evening, a shocking crime that would normally draw a direct response from the mayor. Thao did not offer any comment on that incident Thursday and did not appear at a pre-scheduled event on housing featuring the mayors of San Jose and San Francisco.
Other federal authorities also raided two other houses in the Oakland Hills and a business office along the city’s waterfront Thursday morning. All three are tied to Andy Duong and his father, David, who owns the Oakland-based company California Waste Solutions, the city’s curbside recycling provider. CWS also has a contract with the city of San Jose.
On Viewcrest Court, a man who lives nearby said that around 4:40 a.m. he heard a loud noise coming from a house on the block, then heard instructions aired over a loudspeaker, with a person saying they were with the FBI and ordering people out of the home with their hands on their heads. He said he saw about 10 agents, some with rifles and some who appeared to be carrying a hand-held battering ram.
A few miles away, law enforcement officials wearing police vests and U.S. Postal Inspection uniforms were seen outside a home on the 12500 block of Skyline Boulevard, a property tied to David Duong. One official there declined to comment.
Along the city’s waterfront, IRS agents could be seen carrying numerous bags of items from an address, 1211 Embarcadero, tied to California Waste Solutions. Also housed in that building are the offices of the Vietnamese American Business Association. David Duong is the association’s chairman.
The exact documents and belongings targeted in the raids remained unclear Thursday afternoon, as did the specific focus of the federal agencies’ investigation.
The Duongs have been the subject of an investigation by the city’s Public Ethics Commission since 2020 over allegations they used “straw donors,” or obscure third-party entities, to funnel money to City Council candidates in past elections.
Thao, a first-term council member at the time, was accused of receiving money through the alleged straw-donor scheme, along with current council members Rebecca Kaplan and Dan Kalb, plus former councilmembers Larry Reid and Lynette Gibson McElhaney.
In all, the Duongs allegedly used more than a dozen individuals and businesses to give $51,000 in campaign contributions to City Council candidates, dating back to 2013. David Duong told the Oaklandside news outlet in 2020 that he had done nothing wrong.
Around the same time, the council met several times in closed-session meetings to discuss if they should settle a lawsuit CWS filed against the city in 2017. The city had filed its own suit alleging the recycling company took advantage of a mistake in its city contract to rake in millions of dollars by overcharging customers.
The complaint has remained under investigation since then, with few official updates.
Last year, the Vietnamese American Business Association contributed heavily to a Bay Area delegation to Vietnam that involved lunches with foreign officials and tours of the country’s electric-vehicle manufacturing plants.
The 11-day business trip was led by Thao — whose own travel expenses were covered by the Port of Oakland — and included numerous city and Alameda County officials, including Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez and Supervisor Lena Tam, along with actor Danny Glover.
The mayor’s spokesperson previously confirmed that the Vietnamese business association paid for the trips of two staff members in Oakland’s department of economic and workforce development.
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