A low-level aide to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo received an unusual inquiry from federal investigators a few months after returning from a trip to China in 2019.

The 2020 interaction was one of the earliest times the government began to take notice of Sun’s activities, according to a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday. But it was not the last.

The indictment states that in February 2023, the state’s Office of Inspector General interviewed Sun Wen about her unauthorized promotion of the governor’s office to issue an official announcement.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration fired Sun a few weeks later, and the governor said Wednesday that state officials’ suspicions about Sun “were immediately reported to law enforcement.”

According to prosecutors in the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney’s Office, until her dismissal, Sun Wen continued to use her position in state government to advance the interests of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for millions of dollars in benefits, despite repeated questions.

In a 65-page indictment, prosecutors laid out a years-long plot in which Sun blocked Taiwanese officials from communicating with the governor’s office, removed references to Taiwan and the Uighurs from state government communications and canceled meetings with Taiwanese officials, all in an effort to bolster the Chinese government’s position.

In return, prosecutors said, Sun, 40, and her husband, Hu Xiao, 41, received millions of dollars in payments through Chinese businesses linked to Hu. The officials said the benefits also included travel expenses, event tickets, a line of Nanjing-style salted duck prepared by a Chinese consulate official’s personal chef and jobs for Sun’s cousins ​​in China.

Sun Wen, 40, was charged with 10 criminal counts, including visa fraud, money laundering and other crimes. Her husband was charged with money laundering. Both pleaded not guilty in federal court on Tuesday and were granted bail and required to surrender their passports.

In interviews, officials and people who worked with Sun at different stages of her career offered varying impressions of her. Some described her as a quiet but knowledgeable employee whose political operations were well-known in the Asian American community in New York City and in the Democratic power circles in Queens, where she started.

But to the Chinese government, people like Sun Wen would be seen as logical, worthy targets, said James Lewis, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who studies Chinese overseas espionage.

The actions Sun Wen is accused of are consistent with a common Chinese strategy of trying to buy influence in countries such as Canada, Australia or the United States.

Lewis said the costs of these operations are negligible for China. Sun Wen may be just a mid-level aide, he said, but for diplomats reporting to Beijing, “recruiting a deputy chief of staff is a major coup.”

“She’s a nice haul,” Lewis said. “If the CIA could recruit a Chinese equivalent, officials in Beijing would be furious, and we would consider it a success.”

Sun started out in politics as chief of staff for Representative Grace Meng, who represented a district in Queens in the state legislature. Known for her fiery defense of her boss in the district, Sun later worked on Meng’s successful 2012 campaign for Congress, which made her the first Asian American elected to the House of Representatives from the state.

After working with Meng, Sun worked for Cuomo, serving as deputy director of the Office of Diversity and co-director of the Governor’s Asian American Advisory Committee, prosecutors said. Hochul promoted Sun to deputy chief of staff after taking office.

According to former colleagues, Sun Wen’s work as an Asian American community liaison was a daunting job that required her to attend community meetings until late at night. Former colleagues said Sun Wen seemed tireless.

But some officials who interacted more frequently with Sun Wen said they began to notice changes in her as her role in state government grew.

A state lawmaker and a former state lawmaker who spoke on condition of anonymity said the governor’s office seemed particularly sensitive to issues involving Taiwan during Sun’s tenure under Cuomo. According to one of the lawmakers, the governor’s office resisted and opposed symbolic pro-Taiwan resolutions that were regularly introduced in the state legislature.

The congresswoman also said Sun Wen and her husband frequently attended events and fundraisers organized by mainland Chinese groups in Queens and Albany, and lived a more lavish lifestyle than most people in her position.

Her 2019 trip to China included a reception in Beijing to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Prosecutors now say the trip was orchestrated by a Chinese government official who also paid for Sun Wen’s hotel stay.

When New York became the epicenter of the emerging coronavirus crisis, Ms. Sun, one of the few Mandarin-speaking members of the governor’s senior staff with trans-Pacific connections, became part of a task force charged with getting personal protective equipment and other supplies from China.

According to the indictment, in January 2020, Sun Wen wrote to a Chinese government official “to provide an update on the donation of personal protective equipment to Wuhan by members of overseas Chinese associations in the United States,” and told the official that a company she claimed was owned by her husband would “provide free transportation services for goods shipped to the epidemic area and offered to provide free transportation services to other overseas Chinese associations.” The company actually belonged to Sun Wen and a friend of her husband.

Also regarding the donation, a Chinese government official sent Sun Wen a link to a government media statement that mentioned the company and wrote: “Please express your gratitude to your husband and his company.”

Her influence was limited, though: She was never in charge of lucrative state contracts or procurement decisions.

Some people interviewed by The New York Times were puzzled by aspects of her personal life beyond her official duties.

For years, she lived in the Linden Towers, a middle-class condominium in Flushing, Queens. Several people who worked with her said they got the impression that her husband had lost his job and that Sun often told superiors she needed a pay raise, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

At the same time, she often wears designer clothes to the state office building in midtown Manhattan, where her office is just downstairs from the governor’s office.

“I do remember her being a little more polished than other government employees,” said Brandon Hicks, who worked closely with Sun when he was Cuomo’s director of African-American affairs. “The way she was dressed. The bag she carried. Her husband looked like he must have a good job.”

As Cuomo resigned and a scramble to fill senior staff positions arose, Sun was brought in by Jeff Lewis, then Hochul’s chief of staff, to serve as deputy chief of staff. Sun’s role was limited primarily to event planning, and senior administration officials quickly decided to reassign her, several officials said.

She moved to the Department of Labor in 2023 and left state government.

Lewis did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Hochul expressed outrage at the charges. “I am outraged by this behavior,” she said. “As the indictment alleges, she used this position to violate trust.”

The governor revealed that he had asked the State Department to expel the Chinese Consul General during a conference call arranged by Secretary of State Blinken.

She said she was “informed that the consul general is no longer with the New York mission.” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a press conference on Wednesday that the consul general was not expelled but left the consulate because his rotation ended.