Chinese developer who allegedly bribed top Eric Adams adviser has links to CCP, bankrolled secret police station

The man accused of bribing a top Eric Adams adviser in a $120,000 scheme has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

Yan Po Zhu, 51, also known as Andy Zhu, and Frank Carone, a lawyer and Adams’ former chief of staff, were arrested this week along with three others on fraud and money laundering charges.

Zhu — who allegedly made payments to Carone in exchange for a contract to house migrants at his Queens hotel in 2022, per court documents — donated $100,000 to American Changle Association in 2018 and has long associated with suspected CCP agent Linda Sun.

American Changle Association operated a Chinatown police station used to spy on dissidents originally from the country, as first reported by The Post. 

Last month, “Harry” Lu Jianwang, the group’s president, was convicted of acting as a foreign agent for China in connection with operating the illegal police station for the Chinese government.

On Thursday, The Post spotted Brookville Police officers removing long guns from Zhu’s sprawling six-bedroom mansion on Long Island’s North Shore in an early morning raid — the second time this week law enforcement targeted the property in the ritzy Glen Head enclave.

A spokesman for Brooklyn federal court told The Post that Zhu owns “multiple” guns and had to surrender them as a condition of his pre-trial release.

Zhu’s 2018 donation to the American Changle Association made up the bulk of the group’s $136,000 donations that year, according to public records.

A year earlier, when the nonprofit was first registered with the IRS, Zhu and his father donated $40,000 to the group, which billed itself as a “social gathering place for Fujianese people,” according to Chinese media reports.

Zhu, who has pleaded not guilty to federal bribery and fraud charges, was hit on Wednesday with an $8 million bond — four times more than the $2 million levied on Carone — because prosecutors deem him a flight risk.

They described him as a Chinese national “with extensive foreign ties to a country that does not extradite to the United States.”

Stephen Scaring, a lawyer for Zhu, did not return a request for comment Thursday.

Zhu, who allegedly paid Carone $120,000, has extensive connections to the Chinese Communist Party in New York City.

In 2020, he took part in an anti-discrimination rally, also sponsored by America Changle Association. 

He was also featured alongside suspected CCP operative Sun in a protest against the New York visit of Taiwan’s former president, Tsai Ing-wen, in July 2019. He is an honorary general advisor of the pro-CCP United Chinese Associations of Eastern US, which is registered as an agent for China, according to reports.

Sun, an aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China. Her trial resulted in a hung jury last year.

Zhu is the president of Long Island City-based real estate development firm East Times Group. His website describes him as “an entrepreneur, investor, and family office executive with more than 20 years of experience across financial investments, private capital, and cross-border business operations.”

Zhu has donated tens of thousands to law enforcement nonprofits, including the New York City Police Foundation, and political action groups. This year he donated $47,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to public campaign filings.

He has also made thousands in donations to Queens Democratic Rep. Grace Meng’s campaigns, records show.

Zhu’s company’s website also features him smiling in photographs alongside former US presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. In October 2021, he hosted former Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly at his home, according to social media posts.

Zhu, who grew up in the Changle district in southeastern China, came to the US in 1992, according to Chinese news reports.

The successful developer works on multi-million dollar deals between China and the US. In 2017, he sold a Lower East Side development site on Delancey Street to a Wuhan-based real estate mogul for $29 million, according to reports.