Two Chinese nationals, including the alleged leader of a ring of illegal cannabis grows across New England, had active licenses to grow medical cannabis in Maine for about a year before being indicted last week on federal charges relating to drug trafficking, money laundering and human smuggling.
In all, six men were arrested and one remains wanted following a federal investigation into a network of “grow houses” across Maine and Massachusetts that all showed the same pattern: Single-family homes purchased, hollowed out and converted into industrial-scale black market weed farms operated by alleged Chinese organized crime groups.
The Department of Justice’s indictment did not specify where in Maine the group operated illegal grows or how long they had been running them, but Maine medical cannabis licenses and real estate transactions show the group was active in Maine since at least 2023 and had been in the state’s legal medical cannabis market since 2024.
Two of the men arrested, Jianxiong Chen and Yuxiong Wu, have active licenses to grow and sell medical cannabis in Maine, according to records from Maine’s Office of Cannabis Policy.
“These defendants allegedly turned quiet homes across the Northeast into hubs for a criminal enterprise — building a multi-million-dollar black-market operation off the backs of an illegal workforce and using our neighborhoods as cover,” United States Attorney Leah B. Foley said in a statement last week.
Prosecutors believe Chen, 39, to be the ringleader of the conspiracy and have alleged he controlled multiple grow houses across New England, staffed them with workers who were trafficked into the country and laundered millions of dollars in profits from the operation.
Chen was issued a “registry identification card” by Maine regulators in September 2024, enabling him to work as an assistant at licensed medical marijuana grows.
Prior to 2022, assistants had to be registered at specific growing locations, but a rule change from the Legislature now allows assistants to work for “any number of (medical cannabis) registrants” across the state, according to OCP media relations director Alexis Soucy.
Wu, 36, was issued a cannabis caregiver card, also in September 2024, that allowed him to open and operate his own medical cannabis grow. He listed his growing location in Windham about a year after property records show he purchased a large single family home in Hollis, a 30 minute drive away.
Both were indicted last week, Chen on 11 counts of money laundering and single counts of money laundering conspiracy and bringing aliens into the United States; Wu on four counts of money laundering and one count of money laundering conspiracy.
Hundreds of once-illegal growers, including some raided by police, have transitioned into Maine’s medical cannabis industry since law enforcement began cracking down on Maine’s illegal Chinese-run cannabis grows last year. Roughly one-in-10 of Maine’s 1,700-odd licensed cannabis caregivers now exhibit the hallmarks of illicit growing operations allegedly linked to Chinese crime groups.
Maine is not the only state where Chinese criminal groups are seeding legal markets with illegal operations. In California, Oklahoma, Oregon and elsewhere, authorities say the groups are cornering America’s cannabis market with the same playbook laid out in the DOJ’s indictment: Establish many large-scale illegal grows in rural areas, staff them with forced labor, pump out tons of cheap cannabis and sell it into both legal and illegal markets for huge profits.
Business filings from across the country show several LLCs, or limited liability corporations, have been established by the men in states where Chinese criminal groups have set up similar illegal cannabis farms.
Chen, the alleged ringleader, established five LLCs between 2022 and 2025 in Washington, Montana and Missouri. Wu is listed as the agent of LLCs in Massachusetts and Colorado created earlier this year. Other coconspirators own construction, transportation and “e-commerce” businesses in California.
Federal and state authorities have raided dozens of illegal Chinese-run growing operations across those and other states, some of which were licensed in their respective legal marijuana programs.
It’s still not clear whether Chen, Wu or any of the other men charged last week grew cannabis outside Maine and Massachusetts. None of the LLCs they established were expressly for that purpose.
