A Maine family developed unusual respiratory symptoms after touring a Monmouth home that had previously been used as an illicit Chinese marijuana grow.
Unbeknownst to the family, the home had only been listed for sale after it was exposed by the Maine Wire as a former unlicensed cannabis grow and an active shipping hub for Chinese-made pesticides and fungicides.
The property, located at 254 Academy Road in Monmouth, was placed for sale shortly after the Maine Wire published an Aug. 29 story identifying it as part of an illegal Chinese drug trafficking network with ties to California.
According to a California state agency, the property was among several in the north east that had received shipments from a source known to be providing Chinese growers in California with mysterious, Chinese-made insecticides and fungicides that are illegal to use in the United States.
A Maine woman, who asked not to be identified, contacted the Maine Wire shortly after touring the house with her grandchildren out of concern for their health, as both her and the two young children began experiencing symptoms shortly after entering the house.
In an email, the woman described the symptoms as respiratory irritation, including burning nostrils. Although she did say that the house smelled like marijuana, those symptoms are not typically associated with exposure to cannabis.
“Something has to be done to make state liable or towns liable to go in and test these places for chemicals or red flag them so agents and potential buyers are not exposed,” the woman said.
“This is crazy,” she said.
Maine law does require real estate agencies to make certain disclosures around hazardous substances, such as asbestos, lead-based paint, radon, and underground oil-storage tanks.
State law also requires agents to disclose if a property was previous used to manufacture or store methamphetamine.
Additionally, Maine’s real estate disclosure laws do require the disclosure of “any known defects” with a property, but there’s nothing in the law specific to cannabis cultivation or the suspected use of pesticides and fungicides.
The woman said the property screening was arranged through an agent with NextHome Experience, a Bangor-based real estate agency.
The Maine Wire contacted NextHome in an attempt to schedule a showing, but after showing an initial interest in scheduling a showing, NextHome stopped returning our calls.
The house has subsequently been taken off the market.
According to real estate records, the house was previously purchased by Wayne Yang in 2021. Like several dozen other illegal Chinese grow houses across Maine, Yang used a mortgage from Quontic Bank to acquire the property.
The Maine Wire first learned about the property — which is located less than a mile from Monmouth Memorial School — after obtaining access to a confidential threat assessment briefing given to Maine law enforcement by a California agency.
The briefing exposed how Chinese criminal gangs, or triads, are smuggling illegal pesticides and fungicides—banned in the U.S. for their neurotoxic properties—into the country.
California investigators subsequently determined that the same network that was distributing the illegal neurotoxic chemicals throughout illicit cannabis operations in California was also shipping packages to several other states.
When the Maine Wire visited the Monmouth property earlier this year, it bore the tell-tale signs of an illegal marijuana grow, including commercial-grade electricity and an overabundance of heat pumps, which are used to modulate heat and humidity within marijuana grows.
The grow did not appear to be active; however, residents near the property said the driveway was frequently filled with as many as seven vehicles at odd hours of the morning.
“They’re there between 2 and 5:30 a.m., and then they’re gone,” said one neighbor, who reported seeing Asian men unloading unknown cargo and disposing of suspicious liquid vats.
The reported activity at the address along with the California shipping records suggests the location was used as a receiving destination for potentially dangerous chemicals that could then be distributed to the hundreds of illegal Chinese-controlled cannabis grows known to be operating within Maine.
Although pesticides and fungicides have long been a problem for both regulated and unregulated marijuana markets, the introduction of Chinese-made toxins poses a new and more dangerous challenge to regulators, cannabis users, and marijuana testing companies.
Maine’s legal cannabis laws require testing for 59 pesticides, but the host of neurotoxins found at California operations are not included in routine screenings. In fact, California investigators were only able to identify the substances after bringing in the National Guard’s Weapons of Mass Destruction chemical testing team.
Because the chemicals are illegal for use in the United States and therefore rare, most labs are not equipped to test for them.
That means that marijuana flower or extract treated with the Chinese-made chemicals could be submitted to the usual testing procedures without the toxic adulterants ever being detected.
The implication is that end-users could be unwittingly exposed to pesticides and fungicides so dangerous that even China outlaws their use in some cases.
The chemicals’ effects range from carcinogenic risks to attacks on the central nervous system. However, the California expert who led the threat assessment briefing for Maine law enforcement acknowledged that the true effects of the chemicals could be unknown due to the lack of study on the toxins, especially when they’re combined and burned as fumigants, as has been observed in California’s larger illegal cannabis sites.
The chemicals are so potent that law enforcement officers in California have experienced severe symptoms—from burning skin to neurological effects—after exposure at similar grow sites. Those experiences have led California agencies to adopt hazmat-level protective protocols when interacting with suspected illicit Chinese cannabis grows.
According to law enforcement sources who spoke during the threat assessment briefing, the chemicals are smuggled into the U.S. via international shipping networks, often disguised as other, legal products, and sometimes routed through third-party countries.
The distribution of the fumigants is then orchestrated through platforms like WeChat, which also facilitates financial transactions for the criminal syndicates.
Throughout 2023 and 2024 Maine law enforcement agencies — primarily local police departments and county sheriffs — executed search warrants at more than forty locations suspected to ties to Chinese drug trafficking operations.
Those enforcement actions led to multiple arrests, but the enforcement activity ground to a halt in the spring.
That’s in part because multiple previously illegal cannabis operators are now applying for and receiving medicinal caregiver licenses from Maine’s Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP).
Those licenses serve as de facto protection from local and county law enforcement, as Maine’s legal marijuana program explicitly blocks law enforcement from playing a role in enforcing Maine’s marijuana regulations.
Read more of Maine Wire’s “Triad Weed” Reporting
- Triad Weed: How Chinese Marijuana Grows Took Over Rural Maine
- Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ Brother Helped Transfer Nine-Acre Black Market Cannabis Grow to Chinese National “Mother” Living in Guangdong Province
- How the U.S. Treasury Department Helps Chinese Organized Crime Transform American Homes Into Drug Dens
- Maine Sheriff Raids Another Black Market Drug House Run by Chinese Organized Crime — Cannabis and Meth Seized
- The Restaurateur: Bangor Business Owner Linked to Illicit Marijuana Grows
- Raid on Illegal Chinese Marijuana Operation in Western Maine Seizes Illicit Drugs Worth $1M+
- Three Chinese Nationals Caught Sneaking Into Maine from Canada Amid Asian Organized Crime Epidemic
- The Triad’s Electrician: Meet the 87-Year-Old “Frontman” for Chinese Marijuana Grows in Maine
- Welcomed to Maine by LePage, Eastport Seafood Biz Devolved Into Illicit Marijuana Trafficking Operation with Ties to Hong Kong
- One NYC Bank Financed More Than 50 Illicit Chinese Marijuana Grow Houses in Rural Maine
- Second Chinese National Arrested in Connection with Illegal Marijuana Grows in Maine Faces Federal Charges
- Maine Sheriff Raids 20th Chinese Mafia Drug House of 2024
- Maine State Police Raid Illicit Marijuana Grow in York County Linked to NH Restaurant
- Collins Grills FBI Chief Wray Over Chinese Mafia Drug Trafficking in Maine
- WATCH: CBS Morning News Features Maine Wire’s Steve Robinson and Triad Weed Investigative Series
- Triad Weed: Here Are All the Raids Maine Cops Have Conducted on Illegal Chinese Drug Trafficking Operations
- Illegal Marijuana Vexes Northern Maine Town Officials as Out-of-State Criminals Prosper
- Maine Sheriff Busts Trio of Brooklynites as Crackdown on Triad Drug Trafficking Continues – Maine State Police AWOL
Janet, Why???
“Those enforcement actions led to multiple arrests, but the enforcement activity ground to a halt in the spring”
And you want to run against Sue..
But, but Frey is coming after your heating oil. DemonRattts in charge.
Was.the house shown to anyone else and did they get sick? How about the realtor?
Oh yeah ….slimy lawyers will all line up outside of these places .
We smell money to be made here .
LETS SUE SOMEBODY .
Are there any labs in ME that can test for the illegal chemicals? Obviously, I’m no chemist, but would think if a sample was available, it might help identify what the heck it is? Sort of reverse engineer it? Talking out my butt, but there must be some way to figure this out?…
It’s like playing with a loaded gun to continue to use this drug. You don’t know what your getting for your money. Perfect excuse to quit.
You think Toady Mills cares? She’s lining her pockets with illegal Chinese Pot money!
Hard to find good weed