U.S. federal prosecutors have accused members of the Turkish government of waging a yearslong influence campaign to cultivate and secure favors from Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City.

In an indictment unsealed Thursday morning, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York alleged that government officials and business executives with ties to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president, showered Adams with thousands of illegal donations to foreign campaigns and free or deeply discounted luxury hotels . stays and flights all over the world.

In return, the indictment alleges, Adams provided several favors to the Turkish government, including pressuring a local fire official to bypass safety regulations and greenlight the opening of a consular building so it would be ready could be before a visit by Erdoğan.

After that alleged intervention, a Turkish government official sent the mayor-elect a message calling him “a true friend of Turkey,” according to an exchange cited in the legal filing. Adams reportedly responded by calling the Turkish official “my brother.”

Adams, a 64-year-old former police officer and state lawmaker, now faces charges of wire fraud, bribery and soliciting campaign donations from out-of-state nationals.

“The conduct alleged in the indictment, the foreign money, the corporate money, the bribery, the years of concealment, is a serious violation of the public trust,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. A press conference on Thursday.

Despite calls from a growing chorus of elected officials, Adams has vowed not to resign. The Democrat, who has adopted a law-and-order message, is the first sitting New York mayor to be indicted on federal corruption charges.

“It’s an unfortunate day. And it’s a painful day. But within all of this, there is a day when we will finally reveal why I went through this for ten months. And I look forward to defending myself,” he said Thursday.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

The indictment is the result of just one of four apparent federal investigations led by U.S. Attorneys for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York into Adam’s associates. Other investigations reportedly include police officers and senior city government officials with ties to other foreign nations.

This case focuses almost exclusively on Adams’ longstanding ties to the Turkish government and business officials, a relationship that prosecutors say dates back to 2015, when the then-Brooklyn borough president twice visited Turkey as part of a trip organized by government officials there.

Over the next three years, Adams again visited Turkey, as well as France, Sri Lanka and China, where he accepted free Turkish Airlines business class tickets worth more than $35,000 as part of an influence campaign orchestrated by a Turkish government official, claim prosecutors.

During this period, according to the text messages cited in the case, Adams’ staffers actively solicited campaign contributions that they knew came from illegal foreign sources. And in some cases, prosecutors allege that Adams, then a mayoral hopeful, himself was aware of the illegality.

In 2018, a Turkish entrepreneur, who helped arrange one of Adams’ early trips to Turkey, texted his contact about giving Adams an illegal donation through a straw donor with U.S. citizenship, according to the indictment: ” We will make the donation through an American citizen in the US… A Turk… I will give him cash in Turkey… Or I will send it to an American… He will make a donation to you.”

The Adams liaison expressed concern that the future mayor not get involved in “such games,” but then the liaison asked Adams if she should pursue the illegal donations, and he instructed her to do so, prosecutors allege .

Later that year, Adams met a wealthy Turkish businessman who owned a Turkish university. Although he was a foreign national, Adams texted his contact that the businessman was “ready to help” and did not “want his willingness to help to be curtailed.”

Before Adams’ 2021 election, New York City campaign finance regulators flagged and repeatedly asked Adams’ campaign team to explain who collected numerous suspicious donations for his election campaign, including a cluster of contributions from a fundraiser organized by a Turkish-American construction company, as the news channel The City previously reported.

Adams’ campaign ignored regulators’ requests and did not identify the bundlers.

However, according to the indictment, one of the people behind the scenes coordinating contributions for the fundraiser was a Turkish government official, who even sent his driver to deliver donations for the event.

Vito Pitta, Adams’ campaign adviser, and Evan Thies, an adviser who worked on Adams’ 2021 campaign, did not respond to requests for comment on the indictment.

The indictment also describes how Adams received generous benefits from Turkish nationals.

The mayor is said to have had an agreement with Turkish Airlines under which he was upgraded to business class for free on various flights around the world. The arrangement became so routine for Adams that when his partner told him she wanted to go to Easter Island in Chile, Adams told her to check if Turkish Airlines flew to the country.

Adams is also said to have accepted free or significantly cheaper stays at lavish hotels in Turkey, including the cosmopolitan suite at the St Regis hotel in Istanbul. During the same trip in 2018, Adams also allegedly accepted “free transportation, meals and entertainment, including a car and driver, a boat trip to the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of ​​Marmara, a Turkish bath at a seaside hotel, and at least one meal at a luxury restaurant”.

Prosecutors also appear to have received text messages blatantly discussing the scheme. For example, in June 2021, a Turkish airline manager asked an Adams employee how much to charge for a last-minute flight to Turkey. The manager suggested $50. The employee responded that he wanted to charge about $1,000 to make it seem “somewhat real.”

‘We don’t want them to say he’s flying for free. At this time, media attention is focused on Eric,” the employee wrote.

During the same trip, the employee also inquired where Adams and his partner could stay in Turkey and the employee suggested the Four Seasons, a luxury hotel. The employee said it would be too expensive and the manager replied, “Why does he care? He’s not going to pay. His name won’t be on anything either.” Adams’ employee simply responded, “great.”

On Thursday, U.S. Attorney Williams said at a news conference that the investigation is not yet completed.

“We’ll keep digging and we’ll hold more people accountable,” he told reporters. “And I encourage anyone with information to come forward, and do so before it’s too late.”