NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Faces Criminal Referrals Over the ‘Illegal Foreign Donations

New York mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani has been accused of breaking US campaign finance laws after a watchdog group filed two criminal referrals alleging he accepted illegal donations from foreign nationals.The accusations were made by a Washington-based campaign finance watchdog, the Coolidge Reagan Foundation. According to the group, Mamdani’s campaign may have violated provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act and the New York Election Code, reported The NY Post.

The referrals were filed with the US Department of Justice’s Criminal Division and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, led by Alvin Bragg, on Tuesday.

Dan Backer, president of the Coolidge Reagan Foundation, in a statement, said, “These are not isolated incidents or clerical errors. This was a sustained pattern of foreign money flowing into a New York City mayoral race, which is a clear violation of both federal law and New York City campaign finance rules.”“Mamdani’s campaign was on notice for months that it was accepting illegal foreign contributions, and yet it did nothing meaningful to stop it,” he added.

It is reported that Mamdani’s campaign has received about $13,000 (approx. ₹ 11 lakh) in donations from around 170 foreign donors. Among these foreign donors was Mamdani’s mother-in-law, who lives in Dubai.

Records also show that Ada Diaz Ahmed, an investor living in Dubai, gave $2,100 (approx.

₹ 1.74 lakh) to Mamdani’s campaign in September.According to campaign finance filings, Mamdani’s mayoral campaign has so far raised about $ 4 million (approx. ₹ 33.2 crore) in private donations and received an additional $ 12.7 million (approx. ₹ 105.4 crore) in public matching funds.

Currently, his campaign has around $6.1 million (approx. ₹ 50.6 crore) in cash on hand.

Two months earlier, Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor, had called on the US Department of Justice to launch an investigation into Mamdani’s campaign finances.

Speaking to Fox Business, Sliwa claimed that Mamdani could be receiving ‘dark money,’ meaning undisclosed political funding, from foreign nationals.

Multiple Republican lawmakers, mainly Florida Congressman Randy Fine and Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles, have accused Mamdani of concealing his membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) on his 2018 US citizenship application.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz also joined the wave of MAGA outrage against Mamdani, calling him ‘Comrade Mamdani’ and accusing the Democratic Party of being “explicitly and unapologetically communist and jihadist.”

According to the latest poll, Mamdani is leading in the NYC mayoral race by a huge margin. The survey shows 49% of respondents backing Mamdani, compared to 28% for independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and 13% for Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.