Frank Carone and NYC hotel owner indicted in $6.8M migrant-shelter bribery scheme

On June 25, 2026, federal prosecutors indicted Eric Adams’ former chief of staff Frank Carone, Chinese businessman Yan Po Zhu (known in NYC’s Chinese business community as Andy Zhu), and two others in a $6.8 million bribery scheme tied to NYC migrant-shelter contracts, according to Documented NY. Zhu allegedly funneled payments through his hotel business to secure city shelter contract awards.

The indictment exposes the corruption layer inside the emergency migrant-shelter contracting ecosystem that expanded rapidly under Adams during the 2022-2024 asylum-seeker influx — a program widely criticized as under-scrutinized, with billions in no-bid and emergency awards flowing to operators with little oversight. It fits the broader documented pattern of immigration-driven contracting becoming a profiteering and bribery vector, parallel to the detention-buildout procurement seam. Carone’s role as Adams’ former chief of staff also raises the question of overlap with the existing federal corruption case against the Adams administration. The story rests on a single tier-2 source (Documented NY); promotion-grade confirmation via DOJ press release, PACER, or a tier-1 outlet remains the outstanding verification step.