They run the mayor’s favorite restaurant, and he says they have put their troubled pasts behind them. Some of their former business partners disagree.

Vadim Shubaderov, a 35-year-old businessman, thought he had stumbled on the perfect opportunity when he met a charismatic pair of identical twins in Brooklyn.

The brothers, Johnny and Robert Petrosyants, were successful bar operators who routinely dropped thousands of dollars at a Russian restaurant in the Flatiron district, were driven around in a Mercedes-Benz and, most impressively, counted the new Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams, as a good friend. When the twins invited Mr. Shubaderov to invest in a catering company in 2014, he plunked down $350,000, virtually his entire life savings.

“They wined and dined me,” said Mr. Shubaderov. “They built up an image of super successful entrepreneurs with deep political connections.”

He never saw his money again.

Time and again over the past decade, the Petrosyants brothers have boasted of their friendship with Mr. Adams, New York City’s mayor, while courting partners like Mr. Shubaderov for a range of ventures. The relationship has helped them gloss over something less savory: Both pleaded guilty in 2014 to financial crimes related to insurance claims.

By all accounts, Mr. Adams has maintained an exceptionally close relationship with the brothers, dining regularly at restaurants they have opened, buying an apartment near their homes in Fort Lee, N.J., attending parties with...

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