The FBI raided the Los Angeles home and office of Alberto Carvalho, former superintendent to the Miami-Dade County school district, on Wednesday, the Los Angeles FBI office confirmed to WLRN.
The bureau did not provide further details about the search, citing that the affidavits are under seal. A home in Broward County was also searched as part of an investigation related to Carvalho, the bureau's Miami office confirmed.
Carvalho has been the superintendent of LAUSD, the second largest school district in the country, since 2022. He served as the Miami-Dade County superintendent for nearly 14 years, starting in 2008, but started working in the district as a teacher more than 30 years ago.
In a brief statement on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District said it was "informed of law enforcement activity at Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters and at the [Los Angeles] home of the Superintendent."
"The District is cooperating with the investigation and we do not have further information at this time," LAUSD officials said.
James Marshall, spokesperson from the FBI in Miami, told WLRN in an email that the office searched a "residence in Southwest Ranches today as part of this matter and have since cleared the scene."
Carvalho isn't listed as a property owner in Southwest Ranches, according to the Broward County property appraiser website. However, he and his wife are listed as the owners of two addresses in Broward — one in Fort Lauderdale and and one in Hollywood.
The couple also owns two Biscayne Boulevard condos, according to Miami-Dade property records.
READ MORE: Miami-Dade superintendent Alberto Carvalho is headed west to lead the Los Angeles school district
In California, Carvalho has stood out as a harsh critic of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, especially following raids in Los Angeles last year. When its 500,000 students returned to classes in the fall, Carvalho urged immigration authorities not to conduct enforcement activity within a two-block radius of schools.
“I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world, regardless of my position today, if today I did not fight for those who find themselves in the same predicament I faced over 40 years ago when I arrived in this country at the age of 17 as an undocumented immigrant,” Carvalho said at a news conference last year.
In 2020, while Carvalho was the school chief in Miami-Dade County, the district's inspector general looked into a solicited donation of $1.57 million for his nonprofit, Foundation for New Education Initiatives, from an online education company.
The inspector general in 2021 determined the donation didn't violate state or district ethics policies. However, the donation, which was intended to benefit teachers, created “the appearance of impropriety" and should be handed back. Instead, the money was distributed to teachers in the form of $100 gift certificates, according to the Miami Herald.
The Associated Press in Los Angeles contributed to this story.
