FBI Investigating Money Trail Behind LA Riots

The FBI is investigating what is fueling the riots against immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, the agency’s director, Kash Patel, said.

“The FBI is investigating any and all monetary connections responsible for these riots,” Patel told The Epoch Times in response to rising concerns about possible Chinese influence behind the chaos.

One group backing the unrest is the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a communist political party linked to networks funded by pro-Beijing tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham.

The group has been posting updates about the riots on social media platform X, describing the arrests of illegal immigrants as a “war being waged on immigrant communities” while accusing Immigration and Customs Enforcement of “kidnapping our neighbors, friends and families.”

Closely allied with the Party for Socialism and Liberation is The People’s Forum, a Singham-funded organization based in the New York City borough of Manhattan that has advocated for the ruling Chinese regime’s causes.

Manolo De Los Santos, co-executive director of The People’s Forum and a New York City resident, has praised China’s COVID-19 pandemic policies. The group has hosted events in Manhattan that have hailed the ascent of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a “decades-long epic battle that transformed not only China, but also the world,” according to a description on X.

The two organizations have been cross-posting on X in solidarity with the rioters. Both have been calling for more protests in their respective locales.

The People’s Forum, in an X post on the afternoon of June 10, asked people to gather in Manhattan’s Foley Square at 5 p.m. to “demand ICE get out of [their] communities.” A poster attached listed the Party for Socialism and Liberation, as well as CODEPINK—an anti-war activist group that Singham’s wife, Jodie Evans, co-founded—as event endorsers.

Evans began a campaign called “China Is Not Our Enemy” through CODEPINK in 2020. She is also a contributor to The China Academy, a content platform that partners with Chinese state media and other Chinese state-linked entities to project Beijing’s narratives. One member of her group disrupted a February 2023 hearing of the House Select Committee on the CCP, waving a banner bearing the slogan “China is not our enemy.”

In July 2023, Singham attended a Chinese propaganda forum in Shanghai that aimed to promote the regime’s international image. He was seated next to speaker Zhou Zhan’an, who taught at the School of Marxism at China’s state-affiliated Fudan University, and took notes in a red-covered notebook, photos from the university show.

The People’s Forum has openly commented about its financing source and its ideological stance. It also stated that it has “nothing to hide” and is “proud” of what it has built.

“Yes, we stand with Palestine. Yes, we oppose the US war drive on Russia and China,” the group wrote in one January 2024 Instagram post.

“And yes, for the thousandth time, [The People’s Forum] has received donations from our friend Roy Singham, a former Black Panther and life-long socialist, who had a bank account at Goldman Sachs.”

The New York City nonprofit has hosted Sheila Xiao, a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, to promote her book touting China’s socialist turn and to deliver a lecture series on the same theme. The co-founder of the forum, Claudia De la Cruz, ran as the Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate for president in 2024.

The networks’ Chinese ties have received growing attention in Congress.

In April, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Patel, urging them to assess whether The People’s Forum and CODEPINK should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act because of their alleged ties to Beijing.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) on June 10 said the House Oversight Committee, on which she serves, will issue a formal document request to Singham regarding “his funding of a communist group linked to the LA riots and the CCP.”

“If he refuses to appear, he will be subpoenaed, and if he ignores that he will be referred to the [Department of Justice] for prosecution,” she wrote on X in all caps.

It said the organization is filing an ethics complaint against her.

Luna later wrote on X that CODEPINK activists had shown up at her office “demanding an apology.”