UPDATE 2-Widening corruption probe hits home for UAW president

The FBI on Wednesday conducted searches at the home of United Auto Workers President Gary Jones, a union retreat and multiple other locations as part of a corruption probe into illegal payments to union officials. News of the FBI action came as the UAW, a once-powerful force in the organized labor movement, holds sensitive contract talks with Detroit automakers General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA).

The FBI has been conducting a wide-ranging investigation into illegal payoffs to UAW officials by FCA. To date, seven people linked to the union and the automaker have been sentenced in the government's corruption investigation.

A former union official who represented the UAW at GM has also recently been charged with wire fraud. The office of the U.S. Attorney in Detroit said the raids on Wednesday included the home of current UAW President Gary Jones in the western suburb of Canton.

Throughout the two years since the corruption probe became public, the UAW and FCA have insisted that the illegal payment scheme involved just a few bad actors. Jones, a certified public accountant, was elected president last year. Previously based in Kansas City, Missouri, as a regional director for the union, he was seen as an outsider who could help the organization move past the payments scandal.

But federal prosecutors have aggressively expanded the corruption probe. The investigation itself was used by opponents of the UAW in their successful effort in June to block the union from representing hourly workers at Volkswagen AG's assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The FBI said it was also conducting searches at the UAW's Black Lake retreat in northern Michigan and multiple other locations. The UAW declined to comment on the raid on Jones' home.

But in a statement, the union said it has always "fully cooperated" with investigators in the corruption probe. "There was absolutely no need for search warrants to be used by the government today - the UAW has voluntarily responded to every request the government has made throughout the course of its investigation," the union said.