Triad Weed: Chinese Cannabis Hub in Central Maine Raided, Tied to Properties in Albion, Jay, and New Sharon
Property owned by You-hua Hu, of Flushing, N.Y., and affiliated with a registered cannabis caregiver, Wen Bin Zhao, drew the attention of the Kennebec County Sheriffs Department Thursday morning.
A large presence of law enforcement, including multiple officers from the Kennebec County Sheriffs Department, were present at 750 Oakland Road in Belgrade, a property previous flagged by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as affiliated with Asian Transnational Organized Crime.
“This morning around 09:00 a.m. a search warrant was executed at 750 Oakland Road in Belgrade for a report of an illegal marijuana growing operation,” the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release.
The Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office was assisted by the Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP), according to the release.
The office said there were over 700 illegal marijuana plants seized and destroyed.
No one has been arrested or charged with a crime.
The property is part of the network of illicit marijuana grows previously flagged by the DHS and reported on at length by the Maine Wire. The network is operated primarily by Chinese individuals, including green card holders and illegal aliens, with residences listed in New York and Massachusetts.
The Belgrade property was a bankruptcy case later purchase by Hu You-hua of New York in June 2020, according to Kennebec property records. Other public records link the property to additional suspected Chinese cannabis grows in the area, including properties in Albion, Jay, and New Sharon.
The Oakland Road property received an upgraded commercial electrical service in August 2023, and state records show the electrician recorded it as a cannabis grow at the time.
Property records show that Wen Bin Zhao was the point of contact for the electrical upgrades at the property.
Zhao has a decent real estate portfolio in Maine for a 35-year-old from New York.
County property records list him as the owner of a property in New Sharon and another in Albion — both of which have been flagged by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for ties to Chinese organized crime.
Zhao also purchased a property at 481 Hussey Road in Albion in Sept. 2020, a property for which he currently owes $1,813.79 in unpaid taxes, according to a May 8 lien filed by the town.
Franklin County records list Zhao as the owner of 4 Smith Road in New Sharon, another property that received an upgrade to 400-amp commercial electricity after it was purchased.
At the time, the point of contact listed in state records was Queqing Xu.
In addition, Zhao is also a licensed medicinal marijuana caregiver, according to OCP, with a residence and a marijuana cultivation site in Jay.
Although OCP records do not list the specific address of Zhao’s licensed cannabis grow, Hu You-hua (the owner of 750 Oakland Rd in Belgrade) owns a property at 864 Franklin Road, also a property with 400-amp service under the name of Xueqing Xu.
At both the New Sharon and Jay properties, the contact listed the phone number +1 (646) 785-6700, so the recorded name is likely a typo on the part of the electrician.
But the record nonetheless suggests interconnection between four marijuana grows in Belgrade, Albion, New Sharon, and Jay, all owned or operated by individuals of Chinese descent from New York.
Zhao, in his mortgage documents, provided an address in New York that corresponds with Exotic Reef Aquatic, an exotic coral and fish dealer, suggesting his real passion is marine life.
According to Homeland Security and OCP records, Zhao’s license to grow marijuana within Maine’s medicinal program was issued after all four properties connected to him were flagged by federal law enforcement for ties to Chinese organized crime.
This is not a surprise considering Maine’s top cannabis regulator told lawmakers in January that he’d been issuing licenses to individuals who were probably using the licenses as cover for organized crime.
At a hearing before the Maine Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee (VLA), John Hudak, the OCP director, told lawmakers that he had been knowingly issuing licenses to out-of-state applicants with suspected ties to the Chinese criminal groups.
“Our enforcement partners have seen clear patterns that align with activity tied to transnational criminal organizations,” Hudak explained. “These groups are exploiting Maine’s medical and recreational cannabis systems for illicit gain, and we are working tirelessly to close those gaps.”
“I do believe that, in some of these cases, individuals who are getting arrested in connection with these search warrants, or addresses that are connected to these search warrants — they are not applying to our medical program to come out of the shadows and into the light,” said Hudak.
“They’re applying so they can have a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card, or what they perceive as a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card to continue to do the operations that they’re doing. Which, by and large, is directing product out of state as well,” he said.
“We do have some internal processes that we have tried to implement to at least identify when individuals are applying to enter the program from addresses that were previously associated with a search warrant that gives us some visibility about what might be going on,” he said.