What began as an investigation into a shooting in Baltimore has grown into a superseding indictment for drug trafficking, conspiracy, and money laundering that now includes at least two Chinese nationals with ties to cannabis cartels operating in Maine.
Zebin Liu, a Chinese national who held a Maine medical-cannabis caregiver license and operated a Gardiner grow under the name Liu Garden LLC, is a charged defendant in a 17-person Maryland marijuana-distribution and money-laundering case, according to court records reviewed by the Maine Wire.
The case — U.S. v. Tao — is one of two high-profile federal indictments for money laundering and conspiracy tied to Maine’s sprawling network of Chinese cannabis grows.
Last year, seven Chinese nationals were indicted in the District of Massachusetts on similar charges: trafficking illicit cannabis out of Maine and laundering the proceeds.
In Maryland, prosecutors say Can Quan Xu, who went by “Shawn,” ran the New York hub that took Maryland drug cash, laundered it or moved it, and then paid the supply chain of growers and traffickers.
Federal agents arrested Liu, also known as Ben, on Staten Island on Sept. 24, 2024 on suspicions that he worked directly for Xu as part of the drug trafficking and money laundering conspiracy. Court records say he was paid to receive shipments, package and distribute marijuana, and move bulk cash.
The complaint says Liu referred to Can Xu as his “boss.”
The arrest-warrant filed that day in Brooklyn federal court lists Liu’s last known residence of 19 Abby Lane, Whitefield, ME.
Months earlier, at the same Whitefield property, the Lincoln County Sheriffs Department had arrested Wan Ting Xiao, 50, of San Gabriel, Calif., and Ding Zhan Liao, 49, of Brooklyn, N.Y.
Liu and Xu, along with Huayi Zhong, Isaac Huynh, and Chunbing Qin, were detained in Brooklyn for removal to Maryland. The detention letter says the men are Chinese citizens arrested on District of Maryland warrants charging conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, conspiracy to launder money, or both.
What’s not contained in the Maryland court record is Zebin Liu’s extensive connections to illicit cannabis grows in Maine — or the fact that Can Quan Xu is the brother of Tianquan Xu, a cannabis growing partner to Liu with ongoing cannabis operations in Maine.
Maine Cannabis to Maryland Money Laundering
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland has said the case started with drug-related shootings in Baltimore before growing into a Chinese money-laundering investigation centered in New York City.
A Maryland grand jury returned a superseding indictment on Oct. 9, 2024, naming Can Quan Xu and Zebin Liu among 17 defendants.
Prosecutors cited seizures of more than $6 million and more than 2,000 pounds of marijuana.
Can Xu is the brother of Tianquan Xu, and the pair have shared a Staten Island address, as well as an interest in Maine-grown cannabis. Tianquan, who goes by “Eric” in Maine, is not mentioned in the court documents and has not been charged with any crime.
According to OCP records, Zebin Liu worked with Tianquan Xu at the Gardiner cannabis facility in the months before he was arrested on conspiracy charges in Maryland.
Just days after the Whitefield property described in court records as Liu’s last known address was raided by Maine sheriffs, Liu and Xu met OCP inspectors in Gardiner, according to inspection records obtained under the Freedom of Access Act.
The records show that Xu and Liu both operated cannabis cultivation sites at 333 Brunswick Ave. in Gardiner, the old Maine National Guard building: Indoor Sunrise and Liu Garden.
Although the details of the Maryland case suggest that the end customers for the cannabis grown throughout Maine were located outside of Maine, there is plenty of evidence to suggest Mainers have been buying and consuming the product.
OCP inspection records show Liu and Xu both reported selling “100% wholesale” to Dontae J. Jones, a registered medical-cannabis caregiver and the owner of Klouds Society, a Winslow retailer. The product-packaging notation read: “100% wholesales to Dontae J. Jones (CGR30324) Brownville, Maine.”
Two years later, OCP issued a public advisory concerning vape products sold by Klouds Society in Winslow, an operation controlled, at least on paper, by Jones. The agency said vapes purchased outside Maine’s legal medical-cannabis program tested positive for unsafe levels of bifenthrin, chlorfenapyr, cypermethrin, malathion and permethrin.
That pesticide foot-print is the calling card of illicit cannabis grows, and Maine law enforcement have recovered evidence of fumigant use involving those toxins at multiple Chinese cannabis sites.
The China Connection
Zebin Liu, Can Quan Xu, and Tianquan Xu’s connections to cannabis sites in Maine sprawls even further.
Tianquan Xu used a Maine driver’s license listing 110 Palm St. in Bangor as his home address when applying for permission to operate Indoor Sunrise LLC, 333 Brunswick Ave. in Gardiner. In a later application for Indoor Sunrise, Xu used a Maine driver’s license with the address 1347 Moosehead Trail in Plymouth, a property owned by Hang S. Tse.
Tse currently controls Green Cana LLC, a cannabis business licensed in Plymouth at the same address as KKJ8 Farm, run by Crystal Zhao, Green Eternity, 1348 Leaf
All three of Xu’s addresses — 110 Palm St. in Bangor, 333 Brunswick Ave. in Gardiner, and 1347 Moosehead Trail in Plymouth — are listed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as properties with suspected connections to transnational criminal organizations, according to a copy of that list obtained by The Maine Wire.
The same Bangor address — 110 Palm St. — appears in Kennebec County property-tax records for Aibao Chen, the wife of Xisen Guo, listed as her mailing address. When Guo was arrested in Passadumkeag for illicit cannabis trafficking, investigators recovered evidence linking him to that cannabis growing operation in Sidney at a home owned by Chen.
Liu is listed as the contact for the 400-amp electrical service permit obtained for an illicit cannabis grow at 336 Zions Hill Rd. in Dexter, a property owned by Jessie He. That property was the subject of a March 2025 search warrant targeting Larry Zhao and Wen Hui Li as part of a drug-trafficking and money laundering probe. According to the search warrant affidavit Zebin Liu was on the Central Maine Power account for several months, along with Liu Zhen and Yiming He.
Zhiheng Chen, who was an unlicensed assistant to both Xu and Liu in Gardiner, not operates Zhiheng Garden LLC, a cannabis grow with operations in Etna.
The names and addresses all start to run together, but that’s the point.
Public records show a recurring pattern: Licensed caregivers, unlicensed grow sites, real-estate holding companies, electrical upgrades capable of supporting large indoor cultivation operations, and overlapping names and addresses — all managed by Chinese nationals who came to Maine by way of Massachusetts or New York.
The records point to cooperation and organization among these cannabis sites, their financiers, and their operators — what OCP officials and federal prosecutors have referred to, for non-Chinese cannabis business owners, as a prohibited collective.
All Maine has to do is download all the property data, select out every Chinese name, and shut down the whole network…
Janet is against doing that, but it will solve the problems…