Why Did the FBI Raid the Home of Oakland's Mayor?

An unfolding scandal in a crime-plagued city

David Duong speaking next to Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao during the August 2023 visit to Vietnam.

This story is co-reported with Lee Fang. It is co-published here and on Fang’s Substack, which I highly recommend you subscribe to.

---

At a public celebration of Juneteenth at Oakland’s Lake Merritt, 15 people were shot in a gunfight on the street, one of them fatally.

But that wasn’t the most newsworthy event in Oakland last week. The mass shooting was overshadowed in local news by the revelation the next morning that the FBI had conducted a raid of the Mayor’s house, a garbage company called California Waste Solutions, and the homes owned by David Duong, the owner of the firm.

Together, the two stories illustrate the dire situation in which Mayor Sheng Thao finds herself, as the leader of a crime-ridden city in free fall who is now in the middle of an unfolding political scandal. Just two days before the FBI raid, a campaign to recall Thao from office qualified for the November ballot. Now voters are wondering whether she’ll even make it that long.

The FBI has made no public comment about the raid, which was one of four conducted jointly with the IRS and the US Postal Inspector on four separate sites. But the investigation likely centers on a local political operative with a history of financial fraud named Mario Juarez and his ties to California Waste Solutions, the waste management firm owned by Duong.

Juarez has run twice for Oakland city council. During the 2022 election, in which he ran for mayor, he was allegedly helping then-candidate Thao defeat her closest rival, then-City Councilman Loren Taylor. The close vote was one of the most pitched elections over public safety in the Bay Area — Taylor had voiced concerns about rising crime and the lack of adequate policing. In contrast, Thao and her allies had advocated cuts to the Oakland Police Department before reversing her position and posing as the law-and-order candidate. 

According to a recent report by ABC News 7, Thao’s former chief of staff, Renia Webb, witnessed Juarez asking Thao and Andy Duong, a campaign bundler whose father David owns California Waste Solutions, for $25,000 to complete an order for a political direct mail piece. Duong responded that he would handle it and had already put in $50,000 for the undertaking. This transaction alone may have violated campaign finance laws.