The New York City Fire Department's new chief's ties to China are coming to light against the backdrop of a federal investigation into foreign influence on city officials.
According to reports, FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker previously served as president of a private security firm whose one of its clients was a billionaire who once admitted to the federal government working for Chinese intelligence.
During his time in that role, Tucker also approved emails recommending Lin Guian, a former golf club hostess, for a top NYPD position, a post that Lin eventually received. Lin's ties to the Chinese Communist Party were exposed by The Washington Post last week.
Before joining the NYPD, Tucker was president of T&M USA LLC, a Manhattan-based international private investigation firm that once counted controversial Chinese billionaire Miles Guo as a client.
Mr. Guo, also known as Guo Wengui or Miles Kwok, was convicted in Manhattan federal court in July of a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme and faces decades in prison when he is sentenced in November.
Guo, a friend of former presidential adviser Steve Bannon, acknowledged working for China's Ministry of State Security but claimed he was also a victim of harassment by the Chinese Communist Party. According to the New Yorker.
Sources said his luxury apartment in Sherry-Netherlands, near Central Park, was equipped with sound equipment to record visitors.
A mysterious fire broke out while FBI agents were searching the apartment last year, and authorities are reportedly investigating whether the blaze was started remotely.
According to Chinese-language media and court documents, T&M began working for Guo in 2017. “Guo worked with T&M Security to install cameras in his apartment, [T&M] “I can't work for him anymore.” Documents filed in federal court in 2020.
In addition, Tucker, who had worked at T&M since 1999, and Duncan Levin, a vice president at the company and a former federal prosecutor, Posing with Guo The photo was taken inside his spacious Fifth Avenue apartment.
In the photos, the three men appear to be having a good time, with one photo showing Levin and Tucker playfully poking Guo on the cheek, and another showing him crouching on either side of them with his arms on their shoulders.
A T&M spokesman told The Washington Post that the company's policy “does not permit us to reveal the identities of our customers or divulge any service information about them.”
Meanwhile, in March 2022, an email containing Lin’s resume was sent by a personal assistant at T&M to then-NYPD Deputy Commissioner Edward Cavan, with Tucker also copied, sources told The Post.
Lin, 49, had been working at a top golf course in Scarsdale, where Tucker owns a sprawling $7 million mansion, but at the time had become an auxiliary police officer and administrator in White Plains.
Commenting on the emails, T&M attorney Merrill Lutsky said: “In this case, Robert Tucker has served on the boards of the New York City Police Foundation, the FDNY Foundation, among others, for the past decade or so.
“Additionally, Mr. Tucker has been appointed to the Mayor’s Public Safety and Justice Committee. [Eric] “I joined Adams' transition team in 2021. Mr. Tucker has received many resumes, including the one you referenced, for a variety of positions and forwarded them to the appropriate New York City agencies.”
Cavan became NYPD commissioner last summer but resigned last Thursday following the FBI search of his home two weeks ago.
Lin was recruited to fill a non-uniformed role in 2022 and has been rapidly promoted despite having limited police experience.
Within a year he was deputy head of the Police Commissioner's Liaison Office and was described as Cabán's “right-hand man”.
A native of China's Fujian province, Lin served as vice president of the New York City-based Fujian Changle Nanxiang Charity Association for 12 years from 1994, the year after he arrived in the United States, according to Chinese media reports.
In 2023, he was also photographed attending one of their meetings.
The association is connected to a network of Chinese Communist Party-controlled community groups and school associations known as the “United Front” that spread Chinese propaganda in the United States under the oversight of the United Front Department, which is funded and controlled by the Chinese central government.
Lin's success is all the more remarkable because most of his experience has been in the hospitality industry, having worked at Fenway Golf Club from 2004 to 2018, where Tucker, 54, has sponsored charity events.
The source said Lin started “at the bottom” and worked his way up to become assistant manager of the golf club's dining room.
In a speech in Westchester reported by a local newsletter in February 2014, Lin claimed he arrived in the United States from China “on a boat carrying illegal immigrants” and was forced to pay $40,000 to the Chinese mafia.
He said he worked as a server at his uncle's New Rochelle restaurant before taking a job at the restaurant at Fenway Golf. White Plains Senior Community Living Newsletter.
Lin stayed at the golf course until 2018, when he was hired as an adviser to White Plains Public Safety Commission Chairman David Chung. Lin worked for Chung for three years, according to a person familiar with the matter. Chung did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment Friday, and a spokesperson for the mayor's office referred The Washington Post to the NYPD.
Scrutiny of Lin's ties comes at a time of heightened awareness of Chinese influence in New York following the arrest earlier this month of Linda Sun, a former aide to Gov. Kathy Hockal, and the firing of a Chinese NYPD officer on suspicion of spying for China.
Sun has been charged with 10 counts including money laundering, visa fraud and conspiring to act as a foreign agent of China. He has pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn federal court.
Meanwhile, sources told The Post that the federal investigation that led to the search for Cabán and others is looking into trips by senior officials to countries including Turkey and Qatar that were funded by foreign governments and pro-police groups.
