The FBI searched the home of San Leandro City Councilmember Bryan Azevedo on Wednesday, a city spokesperson confirmed.
Azevedo did not respond to a request for comment sent to his city council email address.
A spokesperson for the FBI’s San Francisco office, Cameron Polan, said in an email that agents “conducted court authorized law enforcement activity at the 900 block of Dillo Street,” but said he could not provide more information.
The city’s public information officer, Paul Sanftner, said the city would cooperate fully with all law enforcement requests. He said the city’s police department was not involved in the investigation.
Azevedo was still an active member of the city council, Sanftner said.
Sanftner sought to distance the city from a trip to Vietnam that Azevedo went on in 2023 that was also attended by members of the Port of Oakland, former Oakland mayor Sheng Thao, and local businessman and political contributor Andy Duong.
“It is the City’s understanding that it did not pay for Council Member Bryan Azevedo’s travel expenses to attend the 2023 Vietnam trip,” Sanftner said in an email.
“The only expense incurred by the City was for City-branded giveaway merchandise, which cost approximately $350, which Council Member Azevedo could gift to whoever he wished during the trip.”
The trip has drawn scrutiny because of attendance of political contributors on a visit that was ostensibly about official city business, which involved lobbying the Vietnamese to use the Port of Oakland more.
Azevedo received thousands of dollars from Andy Duong and a business called Duong Family Investments when he ran unsuccessfully for mayor of San Leandro in 2022, according to campaign finance records.
Andy Duong and his father David Duong, who own the recycling company California Waste Solutions, have contributed to multiple political candidates around the Bay Area in recent election cycles, including Thao, whose home was also searched by the FBI in June 2024.
David Duong was investigated in 2020 by the Oakland Public Ethics Commission for allegedly using straw donors to illegally steer money to certain candidates.
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