Update: Several hours after the Maine Wire broke this story, the Penobscot Sheriff’s Department posted new information on their Facebook page. Three Chinese males were arrested at the site. Law enforcement also seized 40 pounds of marijuana, methamphetamine, and $4,700 cash. The full Facebook post is appended at the bottom of this article.
The Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department conducted yet another enforcement action against an illicit Chinese-controlled marijuana trafficking hub operating out of remote northern Maine on Thursday morning.
According to multiple sources in Passadumkeag, a town of less than 400 people, Sheriff’s Deputies executed a search warrant on a large property at 549 Main Road.
According to the Penobscot Sheriff’s Department, three Chinese men were detained at the property; however, only one man, Xisen Guo, 67, of New York, was arrested.
Guo was charged with Unlawful Trafficking in Scheduled drugs Class B, a felony, while the other two unidentified males were released.
The Penobscot Sheriff Troy Morton did not release any information about the immigration status of the detained individuals. Morton also did not offer any information as to why the other two individuals were released.
That property — which had been visited by the Maine Wire several times last year and confirmed as an active marijuana growing operation — is one of dozens in northern Penobscot County that are suspected of operating as black market pot dens.
According to a leaked Department of Homeland Security memo, there are more than 270 such sites operating in Maine under the control of Asian Transnational Criminal Organizations.
The proceeds from the blackmarket marijuana cultivation are used, according to the memo, to finance human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, and sent back to the People’s Republic of China to finance other activities of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Since the leak of that memo, the Maine Wire has identified more than 250 suspected locations that were purchased by Chinese men and women with previous addresses in New York or Massachusetts since 2020, with the vast majority of those residences now bearing the tell-tale signs of gerry-rigged marijuana cultivation facilities.
Almost all of the properties emit a strong skunk-like odor of marijuana, have had commercial-grade electrical entrances installed, have totally blacked out windows, and are visited every one to two months by large vans with New York or Massachusetts license plates.
Since the Maine Wire began reporting on the sites and publicly identifying their locations and their owners, there are have been more than two dozen raids on blackmarket weed grows, with all of the individuals arrested being of Chinese descent with poor English.
In the last six months, various law enforcement agencies have conducted raids in Corinna, Guilford, Sangerville, Whitefield, Jefferson, Chelsea, China, Wilton, Belgrade, Machias, Cornville, Norridgewock, and Mercer.
Those raids have resulted in multiple arrests and the seizure of more than 20,000 illegally grown marijuana plants; however, law enforcement has yet to take action — publicly, at least — against the broader criminal conspiracy that is allowing the black market bud to be trafficked down the I-95 corridor to Massachusetts, New York, and other states where the ganja can fetch a higher price.
At the Passadumkeag site, the detached garage and the home itself were speckled with security cameras when the Maine Wire visited, and discarded litter related to marijuana growing, including bags of soil and jugs of growth supplements, could be seen around the property.
Thermal imaging of the property showed that, despite appearing uninhabited, the residence was consuming a large amount of electricity and emanating heat, likely from the lights used to grow marijuana pants.
In Dec., the Maine Wire took Rep. Austin Theriault (R-Fort Kent), who is running against Rep. Mike Soboleski (R-Phillips) in the GOP primary for Maine’s Second Congressional District, to visit the site.
Later, after video of that visit aired on Fox New’s The Ingraham Angle, activity at the property appeared to stop, according to area residents.
“It’s time that people start taking this more seriously,” Theriault said, after inspecting the site.
“This is a lack of political will,” said Theriault. “There’s many other areas where the government is not afraid to get involved, but for some reason they’re not willing to put their foot down and crack down on some of these operations.”
Last year, patrons and clerks at the nearby B n’ W Variety said the white and blue house and detached garage were well known to locals as foreign-owned marijuana growing sites.
According to Passadumkeag residents, activity at the site — as well as the odor — subsided for several weeks after it received national attention. However, in recent weeks vehicles have been observed arriving and departing from the property.
A clerk, who asked not to be identified, said that around the time the house was purchased, an Asian man who spoke little English approached the store owner looking to buy the property. But the man was disappointed with the small size of the main room and left without making an offer.
The site is among the longest-running Chinese-owned cannabis growing sites in Maine, having been purchased in Feb. 2020 by GC Realty LLC, according to Penobscot Registry of Deeds records.
According to corporate records with the Maine Secretary of State, GC Realty 168 was registered in Dec. 2019 under the name of Xianmin Chen.
At the time, Chen listed the address for his LLC as 176 Old Belgrade Road in Augusta.
GC 168 LLC also happens to be the owner of a separate suspected marijuana growing facility located in Brownville on the Stickney Hill Road.
The company purchased that property in Aug. 2020. Shortly after, a source familiar with the residence said Chinese-speaking individuals requested and supervised a series of commercial-grade electrical upgrades at the property, including the installation of a 400-amp electrical entrance and a larger electrical transformer.
When the Maine Wire visited the Stickney Hill property last year, the odor of marijuana was obvious, though the residence appeared to be uninhabited. Debris nearby included unopened mail bearing the property’s address and the name Tom Guo.
According to the real estate agent who sold that Brownville home to its current owners, Guo was the individual who handled the transaction.
Xiaorong “Sharon” Horton, a realtor with Realty of Maine, said she worked with the buyers because they did not speak English and she, as a native of the People’s Republic of China, is fluent in Mandarin.
“It was a client who doesn’t speak English, so he bought the property and he asked me to help,” said Horton.
After the property was purchased, Horton happened to be on site when Versant Power arrived to connect the electricity, and she wound up being the point of contact for the utility account.
Horton, who earned her Masters Degree in Thermal Dynamics Engineering at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, also volunteers as the president of the Maine China Network, according to her Realty of Maine biography.
Horton said she’s seen recent news about raids on Chinese-run marijuana sites.
“Thinking back, I’m not 100 percent surprised,” she said.
The web of connections only grows more complex when reviewing the property records for the address under which GC 168 LLC is registered — 176 Old Belgrade Road in Augusta.
According to Kennebec Registry of Deeds records, that property was purchased in August 2019 by a separate LLC — Chen G Realty LLC.
Chen G Realty LLC was, in turn, registered with the Secretary of State’s office on July 1, 2019 using UNIVERSAL REGISTERED AGENTS, INC. (Registered agents are often used for corporate filings in order to obscure the true owners/operators of a given corporate entity.)
Maine’s Congressional Delegation has repeatedly called upon the U.S. Department of Justice and Attorney General Merrick Garland to crack down on the illegal, Chinese-controlled sites.
Last year, after the leaked DHS memo revealed the extent of illegal Chinese organized crime in Maine, Reps. Jared Golden and Chellie Pingree joined Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King in sending a letter to Attorney General Garland demanding to know what steps were being taken to combat the criminal conspiracy.
In a separate Nov. 30 letter, Sen. Collins urged U.S. Attorney of Maine Darcie McElwee to pay heed to the Maine Wire’s reporting on the “sprawling network” of illegal drug sites that have proliferate throughout rural Maine.
Maine’s Members of Congress sent another letter this year after the first failed to generate a response.
But so far, Garland and McElwee have failed to acknowledge either letter publicly.
The massive presence of foreign organized crime has already become a major political issue in Washington, D.C., Augusta, and in Maine’s competitive race for the Second Congressional District.
“The United States government, as powerful as we are, are not putting their foot down to stop this, tells me there’s a lot of stink going on in Washington. And the Biden Administration, and others like [U.S. Rep. Jared Golden], who voted not to protect the southern border, need to be held accountable,” Theriault said last November.
“This is a systematic operations that, I believe, has been in the works for years,” he said.
“It’s time that people start standing up.”
At the state level, Rep. John Andrews (R-Paris) has introduced a bill in the current legislative session aimed at helping law enforcement combat Chinese organized crime in Maine by adding what’s known as a “Little RICO” statute to the Maine criminal code.
At a public hearing on Wednesday, though, Democratic lawmakers on the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee appeared to take a dim view of the proposal.
Full disclosure: This reporter provided testimony on the bill, neither for nor against, in an attempt to help lawmakers understand the problem. My full testimony can be viewed here:
TRIAD WEED
- At Rural Maine Marijuana Grow, Cops Find Asian Passports, Plane Tickets from China, and Stolen Electricity
- Sheriffs Raid Multiple Triad Weed Properties Throughout Central, Northern Maine – Guilford, Mercer, Corinna & Sangerville
- Illegal Marijuana Vexes Northern Maine Town Officials as Out-of-State Criminals Prosper
- Maine Sheriff Raids 8th Illegal Chinese-Owned Marijuana Grow in 8 Months
- Valentine’s Day Bust Breaks Heart of New York Man Illegally Growing 1,310 Pot Plants in Norridgewock, Maine
- Maine State Police Bust Cannabis Grow Ops in Belgrade, Seize 2,300 Plants
- Another One: Turner Firefighters Discover Suspected Illegal Chinese Marijuana Grow Near Bear Pond Variety
- No Arrests as Illicit Chinese Marijuana Grow in Norridgewock Busted
- Fifteen Raids Seize Nearly 20k Black Market Cannabis Plants from Chinese-Controlled Sites in Maine
- Maine Law Enforcement Raids Machias Marijuana Grow, Arrests Three Suspected Non-Citizens
- Maine Sheriff Arrests Two More New Yorkers Linked to Illegal Marijuana Operation in Whitefield
- Two Weeks After $1M Western Maine Marijuana Raid, Wilton Still Abuzz With Illicit Drug Activity
- Chinese Nationals Caught Illegally Entering U.S. Reached Record High in December…
- U.S. Border Agents Arrest Three Chinese “Asylum Seekers” with 23 Fake IDs…
