The FBI and other federal agencies led a search Wednesday morning of offices within City Hall in Buffalo, New York, the state’s second-largest city.
FBI officials and partners from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) searched the offices as part of “what appears to be an investigation into public corruption,” The Buffalo News reported.
Maureen Dempsey, a spokeswoman for the FBI, confirmed that FBI personnel and members of divisions of both HUD and IRS were at City Hall in connection with conducting a court-authorized search. No arrests were made, she told The Washington Times later Wednesday.
A spokesman for the administration of Mayor Byron W. Brown, a Democrat, said in a separate statement that his office believed the search concerned the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency (BURA), a city agency that receives millions of dollars annually in federal funding.
“Our understanding is that court-authorized activity has taken place at a BURA office,” the mayor’s office said in a statement. “At this time we have no further information.”
Federal authorities were also seen inside offices belonging to City Hall’s Office of Strategic Planning, The Buffalo News reported. That office oversees several city agencies, including BURA, which itself is aimed at promoting and planning neighborhood-driven development projects within the city, according to its website.
BURA was allocated to receive more than $7 million in federal HUD funding for the fiscal year ending in 2017, according to city records available online.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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