According to a federal criminal complaint, two New York residents were arrested in connection to a $27 million investment scam, which included charging 12 investors $93,000 each to attend a Trumpraiser.
The Federal Election Commission's (FEC) administration of campaign finance laws was the subject of a conspiracy by Sherry Xue Li, 50, and Lianbo Wang, 45, both of Oyster Bay.
Many foreign nationals were deceived into investing in a fake project to build a private educational institution in Sullivan County, New York, by Li and Wang, according to federal investigators.
The FBI has accused Li and Wang of promising investors green cards, access to political figures, and dividends on their money from the education center.
The only promise that came to fruition was the access to political power.
The scam attracted more than 150 investors.
According to investigators, Li and Wang took the money from investors and gave it to US politicians and political committees under their names, including charging 12 investors $93,000 each to attend a Trump fundraiser in June of last year.
According to the DOJ release, Li and Wang made $600,000 in political contributions in their own names, using the funds that they collected from the foreign nationals.
After taking photos with Trump, Li, Wang, and their investor guests used the photographs to raise more money for their project.
The representatives for Trump and Wang did not reply to the request for comment. The attorney for Li refused to speak.
Li donated more than $32,000 to the Republican National Committee in October 2016 and more than $55,000 to Andrew Cuomo when he was governor of New York. It was not clear if the donations were related to the scam.
Thomas Fattorusso is the Special Agent in Charge of IRS:CI New York.
Fattorusso said that it was through law enforcement partnerships and collaboration that they were able to break down the multi-tiered fraud scheme.
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