Brooklyn’s borough president and a top deputy spent 11 days traveling in China at the expense of a nonprofit run by one of their own volunteer staffers, The Post has learned.
The Sino-America New York Brooklyn Archway Association Corp. shelled out nearly $7,000 for Beep Eric Adams and his deputy, Diana Reyna, to visit seven Chinese districts between May 22 and June 1.
The Chinese government kicked in an additional $787 for hotels, meals and travel in the city of Yiwu.
Winnie Greco, Borough Hall’s honorary ambassador to the local Chinese community for the past several years, formed the corporation as a noncharitable group in October 2012 — meaning it’s not required to file annual reports with the state attorney general.
Adams’ staffers say the trip, which was intended to promote economic development and tourism by signing two sister-city agreements and by securing a “Friendship Archway” for the Chinese community in Sunset Park, was cleared by the city’s Conflict of Interest Board one day before the departure date.
But they refused to provide a copy of the board’s letter clearing the trip, citing a policy of not releasing “interagency communications regarding official counsel.”
An itinerary of the trip shows the delegation, which included Greco and several members of the nonprofit, toured local schools on five of the six days that listed planned events — but the visits produced just a single proposal for a “teacher exchange and classroom learning exchange through Skype.”
Discussions for securing the archway, which would be donated by the Chinese government, but installed and maintained at Brooklyn’s expense, took up just one day.
“Our visit to China has brought Brooklyn, and indeed New York City, one step closer to its first-ever friendship archway,” said Adams, who described the archway as a “magnet for tourism.”
The Brooklyn Eighth Avenue mailing address for the group has no signs bearing its name, and a worker in the sixth-floor suite said that its members meet there only once every couple of months.
Court records show Greco, who lives in The Bronx, was sued by banks three times since 2007 to recover debts of about $40,000.
She also has at least a half-dozen nonprofits and limited-liability companies registered in her name — including one that was involuntarily dissolved by the state of Massachusetts for not filing its annual reports.
The other directors of her tax-exempt group are Paul Mak, president of the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association, and Victor Wong, CEO of a Chinese television channel in Flushing, Queens.
Greco did not return calls seeking comment. Mak did not respond to a call and e-mail to his assistant seeking comment, and Wong couldn’t be reached.