Eddie DuGay appeared before the Turner Board of Selectmen in October 2020 with a simple request: He wanted permits for himself and several others, including two Chinese immigrants, to grow medical marijuana inside a large warehouse on Conant Road.

All they needed to get started was a majority vote from the five-member board, pass a brief inspection and answer a few questions at a meeting the following month. And they got it.

Within months, the warehouse became a nexus for Chinese organized crime, state cannabis investigators say, where a revolving door of illicit growers laundered weed and money through Maine’s loosely regulated medical marijuana program.

Androscoggin County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the address more than 50 times for robberies, assaults and other crimes between 2021 and a homicide at the site in December 2024.

Hundreds of pages of inspection reports, police logs and other documents reviewed by the Press Herald show how DuGay, a former state lawmaker turned full-time cannabis consultant, helped numerous Chinese nationals get medical marijuana licenses and set up shop at the Turner warehouse and several others across the state.

Many of the growers DuGay helped establish at Conant Road were later found to be in violation of state regulations and had their licenses revoked — as did several Chinese growers DuGay helped get licensed at other sites.

DuGay, who is now a board member of one of Maine’s largest cannabis advocacy groups, denied being involved in any criminal activity but said he and Conant Road’s other growers sold their cannabis at DuGay’s chain of dispensaries.

In an interview with the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, DuGay said he pulled his grow site out of the warehouse in 2021 when he stopped receiving payments from the warehouse’s owners and realized they were operating illegally. Neither he nor his clients have been charged with criminal or civil violations.

“I didn’t go into it thinking ‘I’m gonna get these Chinese guys involved so they could have 200 grow houses.’ I just get people into compliance,” he said. “I think all of them thought that if they had me there it would show that they were in compliance.”

Medical cannabis has been legal in Maine for decades, but the industry has grown in popularity since dispensaries were established. Today, Maine is the only state in the country where its medical market makes more money than recreational use, according to state data.

Maine’s lax cannabis regulations also have made the state an attractive location for illicit growers to operate, Maine Office of Cannabis Policy Director John Hudak told the Legislature this spring. It is the only state that doesn’t mandate testing for mold, chemicals and other contaminants.

The OCP often revokes medical growing licenses for little else beyond growing more plants than allowed and working in “prohibited collectives.” Even revoked licenses can be reissued after 30 days. State cannabis regulators say that lack of strict oversight effectively allows illegal growers to hide in plain sight.

Illegal cannabis operations in Maine have attracted national attention. FBI Director Kash Patel said last month he planned to bring more federal agents to investigate the grows in Maine after Sen. Susan Collins pressed him on the agency’s response.

Federal and local law enforcement officials say Chinese criminals have infiltrated the United States’ illicit cannabis market over the last two decades using a familiar playbook: purchase property; set up massive growing operations in rural areas where cannabis is legal, but loosely regulated; find local attorneys and operate in both the legal and illegal markets while sending the money to bosses living out of state.

These groups take advantage of low business creation barriers and opaque financial reporting laws by relying on lawyers, consultants and “enablers” to navigate the legal structure, said Erica Hanichak, deputy director of the Financial Accountability & Corporate Transparency, or FACT, Coalition, an anti-money laundering organization.

“Sometimes these enablers are witting partners. Sometimes they’re caught up in schemes unknowingly,” she said. “But that’s because there are no regulations and no requirements that these professionals ask certain basic questions of their clients like ‘Where is the source of your money coming from?’ or ‘Who is the true owner of this entity?'”

FROM POLITICS TO CANNABIS

DuGay was born and raised in Down East Maine. He joined the Navy after graduating from Narraguagus Senior High in 1975, according to a Bangor Daily News article, and worked with a top-secret security clearance as a cryptologic technician: an intelligence role whose job description the Navy says is classified.

He returned to civilian life in 1980, a copy of his resume posted to his website shows, and worked as a perfume and fragrance salesman.

His first foray into politics was in 1994 as a member of John Baldacci’s reelection campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Four years later, he ran as a Democrat to represent Cherryfield in the Maine State House. He served four terms, much of that time on the Health and Human Services Committee, before he was termed out.

After a few years as a lobbyist, DuGay established Harvest Consulting in 2010: a consulting firm that helped clients create LLCs and business plans. After getting Conant Road licensed, though, it became a largely cannabis-specific business.

Because of his time in state politics, he knew the players and the systems. He brought in dozens of clients and made himself a living helping Maine’s cannabis community navigate the rules of a blossoming industry. But after 10 years, DuGay decided to establish himself in the market.

Already a state-licensed caregiver since 2017, he set out to open a medical marijuana dispensary of his own. Medical caregivers are people who are licensed by the state to grow, sell and manufacture medical cannabis plants and products for personal and commercial use.

Hallowell 4Twenty opened in the summer of 2020 after DuGay worked with the town to change its zoning laws. He said at the time that he intended to source products from his own growing operation and others across the state. He looked to expand the business later that year, according to state records, creating LLCs for satellite locations in Gardiner and Chelsea.

Simultaneously, DuGay established himself as an outspoken advocate in Maine’s cannabis community.

He became a board member and legislative liaison for the Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine and the Maine Cannabis Coalition. He testified in front of the Legislature, spoke at association events and was profiled in a Politico article where he claimed state regulations were strangling Maine’s “mom-and-pop” medical market.

“They’re trying to over-regulate us because they really don’t want us around,” Dugay told Politico in 2021. “I call it medical marijuana gentrification.”

‘REVOLVING DOOR’ OF ILLICIT GROWERS

Hallowell 4Twenty’s storefront became the address on paper for nearly 30 other cannabis-related LLCs. Some were created for Chinese nationals whose licenses were later revoked for their alleged involvement in a ring of black market cannabis growers and licensed caregivers.

But it was 57 Conant Road, the warehouse DuGay would go to the Turner Select Board for approval to operate as a grow site, that would primarily tie him to what investigators have called a large illegal market.

The warehouse was owned by Green Future LLC, a company run by four Chinese men from New York and Massachusetts who signed the property’s mortgage. Several later acquired caregiver licenses with DuGay’s help, according to state cannabis records.

Green Future rented the warehouse’s growing spaces to several people, including DuGay. Some were involved in what Maine’s Office of Cannabis Policy has described as a “prohibited collective” that involved illegal product being grown, processed and sold on site.

DuGay acknowledged that he often pooled the weed he grew with that of others at the facility to sell at his dispensary.

DuGay said he was frequently the only person at the warehouse who spoke English. There were a few people running the other grows who he came to know well, but most workers kept their heads down and were replaced by others every few weeks.

“They were just Chinese guys that wanted to get into the weed business in Maine,” he told the Press Herald. “But they didn’t like the adult-use because it was too much regulations. They wanted to stay in medical.”

State investigators struggled to find out precisely what was happening at the facility as they encountered new growers each time they visited, most of whom would refuse to speak to inspectors or provide sales records.

“When some caregivers could not be located, inspectors were told they had moved out of state or out of the country,” the agency’s media relations director, Alexis Soucy, said in a written statement.

OCP’s practice is to give 30 days’ notice before an inspection. Caregivers can refuse two inspections before their card is revoked, giving them enough time to cultivate a harvest or two. By the time OCP had enough cause to revoke licenses at the Conant Road site, records show that pounds of weed had been processed and a new caregiver was brought in to take their spot.

“The facility became a revolving door of caregivers who either had their registrations revoked or who were evading regulatory enforcement efforts and who then were replaced by new caregivers. Such patterns are indicative of an organized criminal enterprise,” Soucy said.

Conant Road subsequently became a magnet for police, culminating with a homicide in December 2024 during what detectives described as a “drug rip gone bad.”

Luke Krott and William “Nate” Robinson had set out to “rob a group of possible Asians” inside the warehouse, according to police documents. But after an argument inside that facility, records show, Krott abruptly shot Robinson in the head and threatened to kill the workers if they told anyone about it.

Robinson’s body was found at a nature preserve nearly 40 miles away inside a trash barrel that police on the scene noted had “a strong odor of marijuana.”

Authorities have not directly connected the murder to organized crime or illegal operations at Conant Road, nor have they provided a motive for the killing. DuGay had not been involved with the warehouse for years by that point.

Most of the growers DuGay worked with were entirely legal operations. But Conant Road was one of several large warehouses where DuGay helped secure licenses and start operations later found to be violating state laws.

In 2020, he helped one of Green Future LLC’s managers, a man from New York, open a 500 square foot medical grow inside a former meat packing warehouse in Gardiner.

That man’s caregiver license was revoked in November 2023 after he lied to OCP inspectors about growing more plants than allowed, employing unlicensed workers and housing them inside the grow. He transferred ownership of the Gardiner site and his LLC, Johnny Wu Organic, to a woman from New York in 2024.

Even after the sale, OCP suspected the site was still operating illegally after several caregivers reported their coworkers were evicted by a man from New York who “appears to be controlling the activity at that location,” an OCP inspection report reads. Those remaining wanted to terminate their licenses to avoid being tied to any illegal activity, the report continued, but did not specify what that illegal activity was.

DuGay said he noticed early on that there were “factions” among the Chinese growers he was working with and that Wu was the leader of one of them. Those groups often had fallings out with one another over business deals or personal drama, he said.

It was after one of those splits that DuGay says Wu put him in touch with four other unlicensed Chinese growers operating in a warehouse in Wilton, who he helped get approval from the town, he said.

Months later, police raided a massive illegal grow inside another warehouse on the property. They found and destroyed nearly $1 million worth of cannabis plants and products. DuGay said he had nothing to do with that site. Wilton police identified a suspect and said charges were pending in November 2023 but have made no arrests in the nearly two years since.

A massive fire erupted at the site earlier this month, burning down one warehouse and hundreds of plants inside. The Office of State Fire Marshal is investigating but has not yet determined the cause of the blaze and declined to answer questions about the incident.

A SECRET INDUSTRY EMERGES

DuGay, now a board member of one of Maine’s largest medical cannabis advocacy groups, maintained that he abided by Maine’s cannabis regulations while acquiring licenses for growers at Conant Road.

“As far as I’m concerned, everything was above board because I was being contacted by realtors. We were hiring attorneys. We were working with OCP,” he told the Press Herald. “I don’t think that process happens with the 200 illegal grows here now.”

In the five years since he first helped Green Future and other Chinese growers join the medical market, cannabis officials and local police believe hundreds more have followed in their footsteps. DuGay feels like he was “used” to help them learn how to do it.

He said he taught one of the workers how to follow basic compliance rules like documenting when plants and products were sold.

“Once he started learning the stuff, they used me less and less,” DuGay said.

Hanichak, the researcher with the FACT Coalition, said criminal networks often use reputable and well-established lawyers and consultants to provide an air of legitimacy while helping create webs of shell companies. That allows them to avoid scrutiny from both law enforcement and the industries they’re joining, she said.

“The U.S. is really behind the rest of the world in prohibiting the abuse of these different pathways to launder money. It’s not rocket science if I’m trying to launder money through the United States,” she said. “It’s much, much harder for law enforcement to be able to understand where the money flows through with these front and shell companies.”

And part of that flow runs through real estate.

Because most owners of properties used for illegal grows do not live in the state or work at their facility, they can traffic workers and money in and out or even resell the property after a police raid, Hanichak said.

The federal government has moved to seize about a half-dozen illegal grow houses across the state. But more than 30, some busted by police, have been “refurbished” and put back on the market by their owners in recent months. Some have generated tens of thousands of dollars in profits.

“If it’s a Chinese criminal organization, they can move money into real estate. It accrues value. It’s very hard to repatriate,” Hanichak said.

Nearly 200 operations exhibiting the hallmarks of illegal grows — Chinese immigrants who moved to Maine and obtained caregiver licenses in the last five years but did not have a presence in the state before — have joined the medical program since 2020, according to an analysis of state records and estimates by local police. Several illegal growing facilities raided by police have since been issued caregiver licenses.

Maine’s Office of Cannabis Policy has said that state law leaves the agency unable to deny caregiver applications from illicit growers unless they have been convicted of a drug offense. The agency has no authority over illicit operations, Soucy said, and instead refers suspected cases to law enforcement.

Maine cannabis is also difficult to regulate. Office of Cannabis Policy inspectors are not law enforcement agents. Their job is to try to bring noncompliant growers into accordance with the law. License revocations only happen after all other avenues have failed.

The agency said state law prevents it from rejecting applications from suspected illicit growers and the lack of chemical testing allows the contaminated weed they often produce to seep into the market.

“Illicit growers have attempted to sell pesticide and microbial contaminated batches of cannabis to registered caregivers at rock bottom prices,” Hudak, the OCP director, told state legislators earlier this month.

Lawmakers have introduced bills this session to require contaminant testing in medical cannabis, which Hudak has said would be the most effective means of curbing illegal growers’ presence in the legal market. But powerful medical cannabis groups lobbied against them.

DuGay sold his chain of dispensaries and largely left the cannabis industry in 2023 after a cancer diagnosis. He still frequents the State House to lobby and organize testimony through his Harvest Consulting business.

The Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine, an advocacy group whose board DuGay sits on, has repeatedly spoken out against testing and tracking, arguing the added costs would put small-scale growers out of business. Simultaneously, the group has said it welcomes previously illegal grow houses into Maine’s medical market.

“We, as a trade organization, welcome new caregivers to the industry; those emerging from the illicit market are no exception,” MMCM Board Chair Tammy Smith said in October 2024. “The association will provide them with the same guidance for the use of best practices, cultivation of clean, safe medicine and adherence to rules and regulations.”

The organization did not respond to requests for an interview or comment about DuGay’s connections to illicit growers or their presence in Maine’s medical market.

The suite of legislation to require product testing and seed-to-sale plant tracking was ultimately condensed into a single bill, which a committee voted to carry over into next year.

Other efforts to reduce OCP’s ability to license illegal growers faced the same fate: opposed, condensed or postponed.