Two New York men have agreed to plead guilty in a federal case alleging they lied to banks to buy three Maine homes that were later used as illegal marijuana grow sites, according to plea agreements filed this week in U.S. District Court in Bangor.
The plea bargain is extremely generous to Yuantong Liang, 36, and Yongliang Deng, 34, and was struck by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine, which still does not have a U.S. Attorney nominated by President Donald Trump.
Plea papers say Yuantong Liang, 36, will admit to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and one count of maintaining a marijuana-involved premises, according to a report from the media arm of Pulse Marketing Company in Bangor. That’s a much more lenient penalty than Liang could have incurred, given he was originally facing 15 felony charges.
[RELATED: Chinese Impostor Points Up Mortgage Scheme Leveraged By Cannabis Cartels in Maine…]
Prosecutors will dismiss other counts, including multiple false statement charges, additional bank fraud counts, and a money laundering count.
Deng, originally charged with three felonies, will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Prosecutors agreed to drop separate bank fraud and false statement counts, according to the filings. A judge must still accept the pleas, and no hearing date has been set.
The men were arrested in New York in December.
The properties, located in Bucksport, Eddington, and Canaan, were purchased in 2020 using fraudulent loans totaling $542,000, authorities said. Liang and Deng allegedly worked with unindicted co-conspirators to misrepresent financial details and secure loans under false pretenses.
Liang was accused of masterminding a scheme in which he paid accomplices to pose as buyers. In one example, Liang and his wife allegedly contributed $55,000 for the down payment and closing costs on a property in Bucksport. Although the associate pretended to be the primary homeowner, investigators claim that Liang retained control of the bank account associated with the property.
The Bucksport property, located on Bucksmills Road, was destroyed by a fire in February 2022.
Upon acquiring the Eddington property located at 200 Clewleyville Road, Deng provided the address of 7608 V & K, INC., a business situated at 76-08 Rockaway Boulevard in Woodhaven, New York.
That business is registered to a Jinming Deng.
The cases were among the first federal prosecutions related to bank fraud committed by the Chinese drug cartels that have acquired a veritable real estate empire.
Neither President Trump nor U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King have made any public statements concerning the timeline for a U.S. Attorney to head up the Department of Justice’s offices in the District of Maine.
RELATED:
- How the U.S. Treasury Department Helps Chinese Organized Crime Transform American Homes Into Drug Dens
- U.S. Treasury Warns of Chinese Money Laundering Networks Fueling Cartels, Fraud, and Real Estate Deals
- Triad Weed: One NYC Bank Financed More Than 50 Illicit Chinese Marijuana Grow Houses in Rural Maine
According to U.S. Department of Homeland Security records, as well as the Maine Wire’s own two-year-long investigation, Chinese drug gangs based in Flushing, N.Y. control well over 270 properties throughout rural Maine.
Roughly one-third of those properties were acquired using mortgages or non-cash financing, with the top finance companies being Quontic Bank of New York and Money Tree Capital Markets of New York.
In many of those mortgage agreements, the Chinese buyers warrant that they will make the properties their primary residences. If those properties are instead used to operate illicit marijuana cultivation businesses for transnational criminal groups, those individuals could be liable for bank fraud charges according to the same theory pursued against Liang and Deng.
