NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban’s twin brother was driven around NYC by a detective after making threats: sources

Police Chief Edward Caban’s twin brother was driven around the five boroughs in an NYPD vehicle after the top cop was threatened. And now federal authorities have seized a cellphone from the detective who drove him around as part of a sprawling federal corruption investigation, The Post has learned.

The detective/transporter was assigned to the driver of Caban’s twin brother, James Caban, because police feared a potential attacker could easily mistake one brother for the other, sources said Wednesday.

It’s unclear when the arrangement, which provided for a driver only when James was in the Big Apple, began or ended, if at all.

However, sources say the plan has been approved by the NYPD’s legal department and work is likely to begin after Edward becomes commissioner in July 2023.

Federal authorities have now seized the phone of the officer who drove James around, as part of an investigation involving several of Mayor Eric Adams’ top advisers, lieutenants and political allies.

Sources have said that detectives from the Southern District of New York are investigating corruption and influence peddling, and last week they conducted a series of stunning raids in their search for evidence of crimes.

Among the victims was James Caban, a 56-year-old former police officer with a mixed past who, according to sources, worked as a “fixer” for troubled nightclubs that had problems with the police.

Federal police searched his home, along with his brother, who is a police chief and lives across the street, but neither he nor anyone else has been charged with a crime.

And neither Edward nor James Caban have responded to several requests for comment since reports of the raids broke.

James, who owns a million-dollar home in New City, Rockland County, joined the NYPD in 1989 but faced a series of complaints and allegations that led to an early departure in January 2001.

Those complaints included substantiated allegations that he used excessive force in 1996 and abused his authority on two occasions.

Five years later, he was fired from the department after he wrongfully stopped and threatened a taxi driver on suspicion of stealing money from his wife’s purse, according to City & State New York.

He later bought an apartment building in the Bronx, but he was such a bad landlord that a judge sentenced him to 30 days in jail as punishment for neglecting to make hundreds of badly needed repairs to the 12-unit building on Commonwealth Avenue.

Eventually, he turned to “consulting” work — which sources say is shorthand for getting paid to smooth things over between companies and the agents who got them into trouble.

“It wasn’t the old-fashioned mafia, ‘If you don’t pay up, we’ll smash your windows,'” one source said. “It was, ‘My brother’s a big boy, and he can make your fines and underage drinking disappear.'”

Caban was reportedly called when police attacked the hotspots with a noise ticket or a complaint about underage drinking. He then reportedly went to local police stations. Many of them are also under federal investigation, the sources said.

Bars and restaurants that repeatedly violate the law may face heavy fines or have their liquor license revoked.

It was unclear whether James Caban did his alleged work under the umbrella of a company or entirely on his own. It is also unclear when he started and how the companies found out about him.