Documents obtained from the Waldo County Sheriff’s Department add a new layer of mystery to the deaths of two Chinese illegal aliens who were poisoned by carbon monoxide at a Chinese cannabis house in Waldo County, Maine.
Bolin Zhao, 32, and Cansheng Zhao, 32, were both found dead at a home on 555 Belfast Road in Freedom on October 23, 2024 around 6:30 am after the sheriff’s office responded to a report of a gas leak at the residence. According to the documents, the pair of Chinese nationals “died of toxic effects of carbon monoxide with the manner of death as accidental.”
The heavily redacted police reports show that both men held valid New York York drivers licenses related to the same apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y. Despite having those IDs, neither of the men produced a hit when law enforcement ran their images through a facial recognition program, according to the incident reports.
The state of New York currently issues licenses to immigrants, including illegals, under a controversial “Green Light Law.” In February of this year, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against the state over the practice, which federal authorities are now seeking to end.
The two surviving Chinese nationals, who confessed to entering the U.S. illegally, spoke no English — only Spanish and Mandarin — and are not identified by name in the records.
The survivors were identified by staff at Waldo County General Hospital using a translation app. Details of the interview with the survivors are mostly redacted from the police document. However, the report does indicate that an individual named “Jaiwen” smoked some cannabis, blacked out, and woke up in the hospital.
“The last thing that Jaiwen remembers is smoking marijuana and then waking up in the hospital,” the report states. “[REDACTED] has resided in Freedom for a month but is unemployed… [REDACTED] has been in this country illegally for three years. [REDACTED] went from [REDACTED] and then crossed the border. [REDACTED] has no names to provide about his Mexican contact.”
“That was about all [REDACTED] would say to us,” the report states.
The other survivor was highly uncooperative, including with a Department of Homeland Security agent who had arrived to assist with translation and immigration enforcement.
“[REDACTED] had been uncooperative with hospital staff all day,” the report states. “We did not get to interview [REDACTED] as he refused to respond to the interpreter and took [the homeland security agent’s] cell phone.”
The Homeland Security officer told the Waldo County Sheriff’s detective at the hospital that he would refer to two Chinese illegal aliens to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but “it would be up to them about whether or not they deport [REDACTED].”
Prior to the fatal gas poisoning, the property had been raided in May 2024 by the Waldo Sheriff. The raid resulted in the seizure of more than 1,900 live cannabis plants, but no arrests.
The house was purchased in Dec. 2021 by Austin Zhen, 33, of Brooklyn, New York.
Zhen used a mortgage from Quontic Bank, a New York-based Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI).
In addition to the deceased Chinese nationals and the two hospitalized Chinese nationals, a fifth associate of those who were at the property at the time of the poisoning was on the scene during the law enforcement response.
That individual’s name is redacted from the police report.
“[REDACTED] could not speak English and we had difficulties communicating with [REDACTED],” the report states.
“We called multiple agencies trying to find interpreter services as [REDACTED] spoke only broken English,” the report states. “We were unsuccessful in finding anyone to interpret so [REDACTED] was allowed to leave and return home.”
According to investigators, the source of the poison gas has an elbow joint above the Navien brand indoor heating unit that had become unattached so that the exhaust was not venting properly from the interior of the home.
“The heater itself … showed an error code on the digital screen,” the report states. “The screen displayed ‘Ignition Failure’ which means it would have shut itself down, but it was impossible to know how long it ran for before turning itself off.”
The unnamed associate of the deceased individuals and the survivors is reported as offering the following narrative of events to law enforcement: said individual was trying to call the inhabitants of 555 Belfast Road but was not getting a response. This individual called another unidentified individual and had an unidentified individual go to the property to check on their associates. That individual arrived at the house to find the carbon monoxide poisoning in progress.
According to the police report, Cansheng Zhao was alive at the time his associate arrived and he was brought to a front porch area where he later died; however, Bolin Zhao was already dead by then.
In Jan., the Office of the Chief Medical examiner determined that both Zhaos had died as the result of carbon monoxide poisoning. Their deaths are officially listed as accidental.
A source familiar with the case said that no family or friends attempted to claim the bodies of the two Chinese nationals.
