The four men who walked into Music Cafe in Oakland’s Chinatown late one summer night in 2018 were looking for a wild party. A host ushered them into a private karaoke room, where they settled into chairs around a table and TV.
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After ordering a bottle of cognac, a woman calling herself “Hanna” appeared. She asked if they “wanted girls.” Moments later, 20 young Asian women crowded into the room and its entranceway. The men picked four companions to party with them.
Later, as the night turned to early morning, one of the men drifted into the karaoke bar’s hallway and bought a baggie of ketamine from the hostess. Then they paid their female companions, who laughed and sipped alcohol while music blasted. Another one of the men purchased a dime bag of cocaine.
Two weeks later, on July 27, 2018, the same four men returned to Music Cafe, which was tucked behind a bakery and tea shop called Sancha Bar at 251 9th Street. They bought the company of more young women and purchased more drugs.
This time, the hostess Hanna walked into their room and placed a ceramic dinner-sized plate with three purple straws on their table. She poured a white powdery substance, ketamine, from a small baggie onto the surface. As the night unfolded, they bought more drugs and flirted with the young women, who rotated through the bar’s 11 private rooms where other partying patrons sang and laughed.
The same men came back three more times between August and October 2018, buying more drugs and eventually paying for a sex worker employed by Music Cafe to accompany them to Oakland’s Marriott Hotel. The hosts of Music Cafe came to see the men as “regulars.”
They were actually cops.
The four state agents with the Department of Alcohol Beverage Control made their five undercover visits to Music Cafe in 2018 after getting a tip that the karaoke bar was operating past 2 a.m., selling narcotics, and breaking other laws, according to investigative records.
Dozens of illegal bars, casinos, nightclubs, brothels, and similar establishments are busted every year in Oakland, and the sting targeting Music Cafe would be unremarkable except for one fact: public records link the business and at least one of its hosts to a suspected political money laundering scheme allegedly run by Andy Duong, one of the people at the center of the FBI raids that rocked Oakland last week.
Allegations of “straw donor” contributions to Oakland politicians from Music Cafe’s owners
In 2019, one year after Music Cafe was raided, Oakland’s Public Ethics Commission and state investigators with the Fair Political Practice Commission began looking into allegations against members of the Duong family, the owners of California Waste Solutions, the city’s curbside recycling contractor.
The allegations claimed that the Duongs had illegally funneled money to candidates for Oakland City Council.
At the center of that ongoing case is Andy Duong, the son of California Waste Solutions’ founder David Duong. According to investigative records, Andy Duong allegedly recruited dozens of people to write checks to the campaigns of candidates running for Oakland City Council. He allegedly later reimbursed these people with his own money, or money from California Waste Solutions. It’s what’s known as a “straw donor” scheme.
Investigators say these alleged contributions were illegal because they hid the true source of the cash and violated Oakland’s law that bars city contractors from giving money to the campaigns of anyone running for City Council and other city government positions.
According to a 2021 Fair Political Practices Commission document filed in a lawsuit against one of the alleged straw donors, Andy Duong and possibly other members of the Duong family are alleged to have facilitated at least 93 of these fraudulent campaign contributions.
Councilmembers Rebecca Kaplan, Sheng Thao, and Dan Kalb each received thousands of dollars toward their 2016 and 2018 campaigns. Former councilmembers Abel Guillén, Desley Brooks, and Larry Reid received thousands for their election campaigns in 2016 and 2018. And former Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney received thousands to pay her legal bills while she was challenging an unrelated ethics complaint in 2018.
The Music Cafe was one of the biggest sources of the money given to Oakland politicians through this allegedly illegal scheme orchestrated by Andy Duong.
Charlie Ngo was one of the managers of Music Cafe; he was arrested when state agents busted the business in 2018. According to investigative records, Ngo made at least five contributions to members of the Oakland City Council who were running for reelection in 2016 and 2018. Ngo’s contributions, totaling $3,300, helped Kaplan, Brooks, and Reid’s reelection campaigns. He also gave Viola Gonzalez $700 to run against Noel Gallo in 2016.
Investigators allege that the money Ngo contributed to all of these campaigns was actually from Andy Duong.
Ethics investigators wrote in court documents from 2021 that they had obtained bank statements showing that Ngo “did not have adequate funds in his account to cover the cost of his contributions” to Oakland politicians and that Ngo “made a large cash deposit just before or after writing his check” for all of these contributions.
Another man, Mon Kil Quan, was the owner of Music Cafe, according to corporate filings with the secretary of state and the liquor license for ARDA, LLC, another name for the Music Cafe. Quan, a San Leandro resident, gave $700 to Kaplan’s campaign in 2016 and another $700 in 2018. He gave $800 to Thao and Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas’ officeholder committees in 2019. Investigators allege that several of these contributions actually came from Andy Duong.
The Oaklandside was unable to reach Quan and Ngo. Duong also has not responded to interview requests.
Other suspect campaign contributions to Oakland councilmembers’ campaigns came from ARDA LLC. ARDA made the maximum allowable contributions of $700 to the campaigns of Dana King, Rebecca Kaplan, and Desley Brooks in 2014, and the same amount to Lynette Gibson McElhaney’s reelection campaign in 2016, according to city records.
Two years later, the company gave Brooks and Guillén’s campaign committees $800 and provided $5,000 to Gibson McElhaney’s legal defense fund. Investigators claim they have evidence that several of these contributions were actually from Duong.
None of the elected officials who received these contributions have been accused of violating campaign finance rules.
Ngo and Quan were subpoenaed by the Public Ethics Commission in 2019 to provide records related to these political contributions. Both men initially refused to cooperate and were sued by the PEC the next year.
Then Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley charged Ngo in October 2018 for the possession and sale of ketamine following the state law enforcement raid that took down the Music Cafe, but the DA dropped the charges in October 2022.
A court filing shows that the prosecutor decided to have the case dismissed in “the interest of justice,” meaning some kind of agreement was struck between the DA and Ngo’s attorney.
Investigators claim Andy Duong was closely associated with Music Cafe
Three years ago, when Public Ethics Commission investigators were locked in litigation with Ngo, Quan, and other suspected straw donors, commission investigators let it be known in court filings that they had information suggesting that Andy Duong was the real owner of the Music Cafe.
Duong’s name doesn’t appear in any company records for ARDA LLC, the entity that did business as “Music Cafe” and “Sancha Bar.” But three years ago, investigators wrote in court documents that they are “in possession of private messages in which Andy Duong holds himself out as the proprietor of the Music Cafe a/k/a Sancha Bar.”
According to a more recent court document related to the state Fair Political Practices Commission’s investigation of the Duongs, Andy Duong allegedly told a member of the California State Assembly that he owned Sancha Bar and Music Cafe.
California State Assemblymember Ash Kalra, whose district includes part of San Jose, told investigators that the Duong family has held political fundraisers for him in the past. He said that at a 2018 fundraiser, Andy Duong talked to him about Sancha Bar and Music Cafe, giving him the impression that Duong owned the business.
The year before, Kalra and Andy Duong texted about an award that David Duong was receiving from the Asian American Prosecutors Association. The guests at the dinner ceremony included then-Alameda County District Attorney O’Malley.
Other text messages to and from Kalra in late 2017 and early 2018 included more talk about the Music Cafe. According to state investigators, Andy Duong told Kalra about “his karaoke club,” sent him a photo of one of the karaoke rooms, and said “to let him know when he would like to visit so he can ‘set it up real good for you.’”
Kalra hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing by state political watchdogs.
After Music Cafe was raided in 2018, ARDA LLC lost its liquor license. Two other individuals who were arrested during the bust—women who allegedly sold drugs and agreed to provide sex work to undercover agents—were also prosecuted by the DA.
Sancha Bar, the tea room in the front of the building, closed in 2020. Today, a tea, barbecue, dumpling, and seafood restaurant occupies the space.
