Kennebec Sheriff’s Department deputies responded to reports of an armed robbery at a Belgrade marijuana grow site on Wednesday and discovered that the operator of the site spoke Cantonese, a language primarily spoken in southern China.
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At approximately 6:49 a.m., deputies responded to Bartlett Road for reports of an armed robbery.
Dispatchers reportedly struggled to gather information from the caller because her primary language was Cantonese.
Deputies arrived and were able to ascertain that three men allegedly entered the residence, tied up the couple operating the site at gunpoint, and stole all the marijuana at the site and an undisclosed amount of cash.
The suspects were allegedly at the site for over three hours, but the Chinese couple was reportedly uninjured.
The sheriff’s department provided no details on the national origin of the alleged robbers.
Kennebec deputies determined that the site was licensed as a legal marijuana grow operation, and the Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP) has been notified of the robbery.
Kennebec detectives are conducting an investigation and searching for suspects.
Though the grow site was licensed, that does not rule out possible connections with Chinese organized crime.
OCP Director John Hudak previously admitted that his department provided grower licenses to people with connections to organized crime.
The Maine Wire reached out to the Sheriff’s Department asking for the street address of the grow site where the alleged robbery was reported, but they did not immediately respond.
