NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban’s junket to Qatar last year cost upward of $10,000 and was paid for by the Middle Eastern country’s government, one of five trips he took in 2023 bankrolled by non-New York City entities, documents released by the Conflict of Interest Board show.
Details on Caban’s all expenses paid trip to the oil-rich nation are contained in his latest financial disclosure released by the COIB on Thursday to the Daily News.
The disclosure only offers ranges for the value of each free trip Caban took last year, not exact dollar figures. In total, the trips, which also included jaunts to Sydney, Australia in May, the Dominican Republic in October and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. in November, cost a total of upward of $30,000, all of it picked up outside groups or foreign governments, the records show.
The NYPD and Mayor Adams’ office, which has previously declined to specify how the commissioner’s trips were funded, didn’t immediately reply to questions from The News on Thursday.
Caban’s previously unreported Australia trip, which spanned from May 21 to May 23, cost upward of $5,000, and he went on it to attend the “Pearls in Policing Conference” in Sydney, the records show. The conference, a gathering of police executives from countries around the world, was sponsored by Australian Federal Police and the New South Wales Police, and Caban’s tab was paid for by the Pearls in Policing organizers.
Caban’s expenses of up to $5,000 for a trip to Puerto Rico in November 2023 for SOMOS, an annual gathering of business and political leaders, was picked up by that conference’s organizers, according to the records.
And expenses of up to $5,000 for Caban’s trip to Fort Lauderdale on Nov. 15 and Nov 16 for the Mayor’s Summit Against Anti-Semitism were paid by the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement.
Finally, Caban’s expenses of up to $5,000 to go the Dominican Republic in 2023 to sign a memorandum of understanding related to election security in the Big Apple were paid by the Dominican government.
The documents say the reason for the Qatar trip was to attend a “Ministry of the Interior’s police graduation” and “observe and collaborate regarding security practices.” While on the trip, Caban missed a key briefing in Manhattan on Oct. 12 by city and state officials held on security around expected mass protests in New York following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists.
Upward of $5,000 of the expenses for Caban’s Qatar trip were paid by the country’s Interior Ministry, while its embassy paid upward of another $5,000, according to the records obtained by The News. All the expenses are listed as being for “travel expense/accommodations/meals.”
It’s unclear why two different Qatari government entities split Caban’s tab.
Caban returned to the Middle East in February for a trip to the United Arab Emirates for the Global Governments Summit, joined by senior Adams adviser Joel Eisdorfer and the mayor’s International Affairs Commissioner Ed Mermelstein. The mayor’s reps have declined to say who paid for that trip, but said “no taxpayer dollars” were spent.
