Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ Brother Helped Transfer Nine-Acre Black Market Cannabis Grow to Chinese National “Mother” Living in Guangdong Province: Triad Weed

A Chinese national living in the Guangdong Province, China, became the proud owner of a “fixer upper” in Penobscot County in February thanks, in part, to title transfer services provided by Paul H. Mills, the eldest brother of Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D).

Xiling Ou, 44, of Malden, Mass., was the original owner of the ramshackle house and its three-bay garage, along with nine-acres of land, located at 51 Cider Hill in Corinna.

But 13 days after the Penobscot Sheriff’s Department and Homeland Security agents raided an illegal marijuana grow just five miles away, she gifted the property to her mother in Foshan City.

The public records list Paul Mills as the “preparer” of the transfer tax declaration forms and Xiaoyu Lu as the recipient of the gift.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Paul Mills said he was unfamiliar with the specifics of the Feb. 22 transfer; however, he doubted that he would have communicated directly with Lu or Ou before filling out the paperwork.

“I don’t know the purpose of the property which was being devoted to and ordinarily you do not do an analysis of that when you’re asked to do a deed,” Mills said.

According to his recollection, though he was unfamiliar with other details of the transactions, Mills believed that a real estate professional local to the Farmington area asked him to process the transfer on behalf of Lu and Ou.

Mills said he was unaware of local and national reporting about the proliferation of illegal drug trafficking operations throughout rural Maine or their connections to Asian Transnational Criminal Organizations. He was also unaware of ongoing political debates in Maine and other states about prohibiting foreign nationals of adversarial nations from owning property in the U.S.

“That would be news to me,” said Mills.

The attorney denied having any knowledge of the activities taking place at 51 Cider Hill.

According to multiple sources, including Corinna’s code enforcement officer and state electrical records, the property is an unlicensed, illicit marijuana growing operation.

Corinna is among the many municipalities that did not “opt-in” to the state’s legal marijuana program, meaning there should not be any large-scale marijuana grows in the town.

When the Maine Wire visited the property Friday, the smell of cannabis was obvious from the public dirt road.

According to a leaked Department of Homeland Security memo, Asian Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) control and operate more than 270 illegal marijuana cultivation and trafficking facilities throughout Maine, and the proceeds from those illicit activities are used to finance fentanyl trafficking, human trafficking, and other illegal activities.

A Gift for Mother: 51 Cider Hill Road – Corinna

The 44-year-old Xiling Ou purchased and renovated the structures on the nine-acre Corinna property, described by the listing agent as a “fixer upper,” in Feb. 2023.

Photos from the real estate listing, as archived by RedFin, show the house in a dilapidated state prior to Ou’s purchase. According to the real estate site, Ou used Realty of Maine as her agent for the transaction. Municipal property records indicate the house did not have any heating at the time of Ou’s purchase.

Despite Corinna’s policies against large-scale marijuana cultivation, electrical records obtained by the Maine Wire via a Freedom of Access Act request show that Ou’s property was described as a cannabis grow in May 2023 when she applied for a permit to have commercial-grade electricity (i.e. 400-amps or greater) installed. Ou was the point of contact with the state throughout the electrical inspection process, according to the worksite permit.

Multiple sources in Corinna, including Code Enforcement Officer Al Tempesta, confirmed that the location was one of many in Corinna and the surrounding area that have been denied permit approvals or reported to law enforcement as illegal cannabis grows.

Tempesta, along with Penobscot County Electrical Inspector Kern Butler, inspected the property together last year and conducted the plumbing and electrical inspections for the property.

According to Tempesta, the property failed both inspections.

“I went back a second time after they said they were all set,” said Tempesta. “And I said no. It’s not done yet. Failed. And [Ou] said okay, I’ll call you.”

Tempesta never heard back from Ou and never approved the 1190 Form, a form that Central Maine Power (CMP) requires local officials to approve before they will turn on electricity for a customer.

The form certifies to CMP that a property owner has obtained “all local permits and/or approvals” required under state law.

Tempesta refused to sign the 1190 Form.

“It never passed. And the Form 1190 — I did not sign off on that because the application with the state said ‘to grow marijuana’, and Kern [Butler] told me that, and I said, ‘I can’t sign off on that, Corinna did not opt in’,” said Tempesta.

Butler did not respond to inquiries submitted to him through the Maine Electrical Examiners Board.

Despite Tempesta never signing off on the Form 1190, the 51 Cider Hill property had plenty of electricity flowing to the garage — but not the house — on Friday when the Maine Wire used an infrared camera to measure the heat signature emanating from the structures.

According to the infrared measurements, the garage was warmer than the ambient 20 degrees — well above 70 degrees — while the house was around 30 degrees, a clear indicator that power of some kind was flowing into the property.

Ou did not respond to multiple different phone calls placed to the phone numbers she supplied during the permitting and inspection process.

Although Ou owned the property outright, she never appears to have made it her primary residence, as the property tax assessment was sent to her address in Malden, Mass. However, when the Maine Wire visited the property, there was a vehicle with Mass. plates in the driveway which, judging by the fresh tracks in recently fallen snow, had arrived at the property within the last 24 hours.

Ou signed the property over to Lu in February, shortly after local law enforcement raided a number of illegal marijuana grows in the area, including a property at 9 St. Albans Road located just five miles as-the-crow-flies from her property.

Lu, the mother, gave the following address, according to the deed filed with Penobscot County: “1501, 3 Dong, Bi Hai Ming Xuan, Hai Tao Ge Xi Yuan, Shunde Bi Gui Yuan, Foshan, GuangDong, China”.

It appears that the address was incompletely filled in on the Maine Real Estate Transfer Tax Declaration Form by someone unfamiliar with how Chinese mailing addresses are written, and who had only the deed to work with.

The full address from the deed corresponds to a massive housing complex in Foshan, Guangdong Province, China, a city of nine million people that sits roughly 70 miles northwest of Hong Kong.

As far back as 2007, Guangdong Province had become a hotbed of activity for triad criminal organizations, which had historically operated out of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

According to a report from the South China Morning Post, an 18-month investigation by the “High People’s Court” found evidence of significant organized criminal activity in the province.

“[O]fficials said there were worrying signs that ‘overseas’ triads had taken root in Guangdong,” the SCMP report said.

Under Maine law, Ou is not obligated to pay any real estate transfer taxes or capital gain taxes because the transfer is categorized as a gift.

Title transfer preparers, like Paul Mills, are not required to do any due diligence on the recipient of the gift transfer — or even prove that the recipient is an actual living person. Nothing in Maine or U.S. law prevents property owners from “gifting” land to individuals supposedly living in China.

As a resident of China, Lu would be far beyond the reach of Maine and U.S. law enforcement should they ever need to contact her in relation to the marijuana operation occuring on her new Penobscot County compound.

Paul Mills, 71, is the founder and managing partner of the Mills & Mills law firm, located at 163 Main Street in Farmington. People familiar with the real estate transfer process in Penobscot County said it would be uncommon for Mills — or any attorney based in Franklin County — to handle title transfers in Corinna.

“Mills & Mills is located in Farmington, ME and serves clients in and around Farmington, West Farmington, Farmington Falls, East Wilton, Temple, Dryden, Wilton, New Sharon, Jay and Franklin County,” the Mills & Mills website states.

When the Maine Wire called Mills & Mills posing as an attorney seeking title services on a property in St. Albans, a town abutting Corinna, Mills declined the job and offered the phone number of a Skowhegan law firm that, he said, “does work in that area.”

It’s unclear how or why Ou, who is a resident in Malden, Mass., would seek or obtain title transfer services from a Franklin County attorney for property in Corinna.

Gov. Mills did not respond to inquiries regarding her brother’s business dealings with the operators of a Chinese-owned illegal marijuana cultivation site in the heart of Maine.

Triad Weed in Maine

Last year, the leak of a Department of Homeland Security memo, first reported by Jennie Taer, brought to light the existence of more than 270 properties in Maine involved in illegal marijuana cultivation and trafficking.

According to the memo, the properties were controlled by Asian Transnational Criminal Organizations with ties to human trafficking, fentanyl trafficking, and activities in mainland China.

Since that time, the Maine Wire has identified and reported on the locations of hundreds of properties throughout rural Maine suspected of operating as as part of this network of organized crime, more than 30 raids conducted since December.

Throughout this reporting, Gov. Mills and Maine State Police Commissioner Michael Sauschuck have refused to comment on the subject. While every member of Maine’s Congressional Delegation has asked the U.S. Department of Justice multiple times to crack down on the illegal cannabis sites, Mills has yet to comment.

Governor Mills completely ignores a question from the Maine Wire about Triad Weed.

She still has not addressed the vast proliferation of illegal Chinese marijuana grows in her state. pic.twitter.com/iy0Ax3IEEF

— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) March 9, 2024

Click to read more of the Maine Wire’s Triad Weed investigative series

The timing of the 51 Cider Hill property transfer coincides with the days immediately following a massive series of raids on other illegal marijuana growing facilities, including a nearby site at 9 St. Albans Road in Corinna.

(Photos released by the Penobscot Sheriff’s Department)

Whether intentional or not, the gift transfer Paul Mills helped facilitate has the effect of creating legal distance between Ou and whatever illegal activities may be flourishing at the Cider Hill pot grow.

Given that Maine law enforcement has found it impossible to interview the owners of illegal Chinese marijuana grows when they live in New York or Massachusetts, a property owner living in China would never have to fear American law enforcement.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was the owner of the St. Albans Road property before it was sold to “336 Apex LLC” and subsequently became a sophisticated black market marijuana growing and trafficking operation.

According to the Maine Secretary of State’s records, 336 Apex LLC was registered Nov. 18, 2020 to Wen Hui Li, who provided the St. Alban’s road residence as the address for the corporate entity.

At the time Li registered 336 Apex, he listed his address as 113 Cross Road in Stetson.

That property in Stetson belongs to 113 Apple Inc, a Maine-registered LLC with an address at 1521 70th St., #B1, Brooklyn, N.Y.

According to the Maine Secretary of State’s records, 113 Apple Inc was registered in Nov. 2020 under the name of “Larry Zhao.”

Zhao also happens to be the name of the individual who purchased a property at 38 Tripp Road in Ripley, a short distance from both the St. Albans Road and the Cider Hill properties.

The Maine Wire has visited that property multiple times and observed the telltale signs of a marijuana grow, including an abundance of heat pumps, recent electrical upgrades, and the odor of marijuana.

In addition, electrical contractors familiar with Zhao and the property have confirmed that, shortly after he purchased the property, he solicited help installing an electrical capacity for the home that far exceeded what is normally required of a mobile home.

[RELATED: Triad Weed: One NYC Bank Financed More Than 50 Illicit Chinese Marijuana Grow Houses in Rural Maine…]

On the same day of the St. Albans Road raid, the sheriffs in Somerset and Piscatquis counties raided locations in Guilford, Mercer, and Sangerville.

Those raids included:

• 522 Water St. in Guilford, purchased in cash in April 2021 by Yuanwei Huang, 39, of Quincy, Mass.
• 8 Manhanock Pond Rd in Sangerville, purchased in June 2021 under the name of an LLC, “934 Real Property, LLC”. That LLC was registered in the state of New York in March 2021 under the names Xin Chi Xu, 53, and Xing Xiu Guan, 56.
• 204 Rome Road, Mercer, purchased in 2020 by Yong Yuan Wu, 43, of Brooklyn, using a Quontic Bank mortgage originated by Ying-Chan Weng.

[RELATED: How the U.S. Treasury Department Helps Chinese Organized Crime Transform American Homes Into Drug Dens…]

The 51 Cider Hill property is not the only gift transfer Paul Mills has facilitated in the last four years.

According to real estate tax records, Mills was the attorney who helped Xin Xia Huang, of Brooklyn, NY, transfer a Farmington Falls Road property to Aizhu Feng, of Brooklyn, NY – a transaction records describe as a “gift between aunt and niece”.

According to the firm’s website, Mills is a managing partner at Mills & Mills whose areas of law include Wills and Estates, Probate, Estate Planning, and Charity.

The broader firms practice areas include “commercial real estate,” according to the website.

Mills was admitted to practice in Maine in 1977 after graduating from Harvard University and the University of Maine School of Law.

Maine Wire reporter Seamus Othot contributed to this reporting.