WILTON, Maine—Maine state Rep. Mike Soboleski never imagined himself digging through a dumpster to investigate the spread of illegal Chinese marijuana grow sites in America’s “Vacationland.”
On Dec. 13, 2023, Mr. Sobeleski put on a pair of work gloves and began sifting through the soil remains from potted illegal cannabis plants seized from an industrial building by Wilton police and destroyed in late November 2023.
The building sits on the private property that housed the former Bass Shoe factory, which ceased operating in 1998.
Outside the building, Mr. Soboleski, a Republican, found a dried marijuana leaf on the ground and picked it up.
He examined it, then noticed the small red-white-and-blue flag on the side of the building next to the bay door.
The flag marked the entrance to the building used by Chinese foreign nationals to illegally grow large quantities of marijuana.
Mr. Soboleski thought the flag was ironic.
On Nov. 28, 2023, Wilton police were informed of an unlicensed marijuana grow site on Weld Road while officers were assisting state inspectors at another licensed facility in the town.
The owner of the Weld Road building allowed authorities to enter the windowless facility. Inside the building, police discovered 1,211 illegal cannabis plants and some 200 pounds of cultivated marijuana.
Officers seized the contraband, worth an estimated $1 million, and destroyed it.
Police stated that the building’s owner has “no connection to the internal operations” of either the licensed or unlicensed marijuana growing operations and was not charged.
Mr. Keys told The Epoch Times that he couldn’t comment beyond what appeared in the department’s statement.
However, he noted that there are “new hurdles to overcome” since Maine legalized marijuana for recreational sale in 2019.
On Dec. 13, Mr. Soboleski took samples from the dumpster and placed them inside a plastic bag to be used as evidence to show his fellow lawmakers.
“They just cleaned the place out. They took the place down. There was nobody arrested. No prosecution. They did nothing,” he said.
“It’s incredibly disappointing on a number of levels. We’ve allowed an illegal operation of this magnitude to come into our state. There is a lack of effort—not by law enforcement—but prosecutorial enforcement.
“In my opinion, this is in the lap of the [Maine] attorney general.”
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
Mr. Soboleski said that when he arrived at the Wilton industrial site on Dec. 13, 2023, he observed a minivan with four occupants pull into the parking lot and then speed away when they spotted him.
Nobody answered when he knocked on the building’s entrance.
Mr. Soboleski said that from the information he’s gathered, the building was part of an illicit Chinese marijuana cultivating “hub” with links to Massachusetts and New York.
“It’s my belief there’s a triad operation going on in the state of Maine,” Mr. Soboleski told The Epoch Times. “There’s a central operation. This is being operated out of that center.
“That’s why the deep dive—to bring more light onto this,” he said. “Our state has a responsibility to step up on this issue, and they’re not. And there’s no indication they’re going to be in the near future.”
Mr. Soboleski is among a handful of Maine legislators working to put bipartisan pressure on state and federal officials to shut down unlicensed marijuana cultivation facilities in Maine, which number in the hundreds.
Maine’s congressional delegation made a request to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland that his office take action.
The delegation included U.S. Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) and U.S. Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine).
“We write to express our concerns about recent reports of a memo produced and circulated by Border Patrol officials regarding alleged illegal Chinese marijuana growing operations in the state of Maine,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter on Aug. 23, 2023.
“According to that memo, law enforcement in the state has identified 270 suspected properties that have been used as illegal Chinese growing operations, producing an estimated $4.37 billion in revenue.
“These illegal growing operations are detrimental to Maine businesses that comply with state laws, and we urge the Department of Justice (DOJ) to shut them down.”
Mr. Garland and the DOJ have yet to respond to the letter. The department didn’t return messages from The Epoch Times seeking comment for this story.
In November 2023, Ms. Collins and Mr. Golden issued a second call to the DOJ to investigate the proliferation of Chinese illegal drug houses.
Maine’s Department of Public Safety has its own Drug Enforcement Agency within it.
Agency spokesperson Shannon Moss told The Epoch Times via email, “I can tell you that as a matter of course, when the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency uncovers, becomes aware of, or receives intelligence about illegal drug activity in Maine, it works closely with federal and local partners to determine the best course of action to disrupt and dismantle illegal drug activities in Maine and to ensure the successful prosecution of such activities.”
The office of Maine U.S. Attorney Darcie McElwee didn’t respond to a message from The Epoch Times asking for comment about that prosecution.
The Epoch Times reached out to the sheriffs in six Maine counties affected by potentially unlicensed marijuana grow operations but received no response.
Mr. Soboleski said most illegal pot farms operate out of rural homesteads purchased by foreign nationals with the help of small commercial banks that issue loans.
“It’s happening because of our lax marijuana laws and the lack of prosecution from the attorney general’s office in these cases,” he said.
“That’s what’s going on. Even if it’s 20 pounds [of marijuana], local authorities won’t deal with it unless it’s so egregious and outrageous. This [Wilton site] is a $1 million operation.”
Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, didn’t respond to messages from The Epoch Times requesting comment.
The Maine Wire stated that it has investigated more than 100 illegal Chinese grow sites across the state. One suspected property is on Pine Street in a residential neighborhood in the nearby town of Mexico, Maine. It sits directly across the street from a daycare center and within 1,000 feet of a middle school.
A resident who lives on Pine Street told The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity that the owners of the property appear to be of Asian descent.
The resident reported seeing box trucks and U-Haul vehicles outside the house at all hours and people moving packages and bags of commercial fertilizer into the house, along with a “skunky” odor of marijuana emanating from the property.
“I’m angry that this is going on,” the neighbor said.
“No one is doing anything. That’s the frustrating part.”
Mexico Police Chief Derek McDonald didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
Maine Wire editor-in-chief Steven Robinson said he’s seen the same vehicles at different suspected marijuana operation sites.
“And sometimes, about 10 minutes after we’ve painted ourselves all over security [cameras], a gray truck comes screaming into the driveway with a sense of urgency,” he told The Epoch Times.
He said Ms. Collins and Mr. Soboleski are among the few legislators who appear to be taking the problem seriously.
“Local cops and even sheriffs have their hands full with fentanyl and domestic abuse cases. They’re not really equipped and don’t have the resources to deal with a vast, multi-state conspiracy,” Mr. Robinson said.
Officials have said that unlicensed marijuana grow sites undercut the price of legally grown products in Maine’s lucrative cannabis market, a $200 million per year industry.
On Nov. 8, 2016, Maine voters approved a referendum question that legalized the recreational use and retail sale of marijuana. Currently, there are about 300 active recreational cannabis licenses, both for cultivation and retail sale, according to Maine’s Office of Cannabis Policy (OCP).
The agency stated that the state brought in more than $17 million in sales taxes in 2022, generated by 258 active cannabis stores in Maine.
The “big mystery,” according to Mr. Robinson, is why “nothing is being done” about Maine’s abundance of illegal marijuana grow sites.
“Local cops say they hand stuff off to OCP; OCP says they hand off stuff to the local cops,” he said.
“The sheriffs say they’re waiting for the FBI to do something. The FBI is busy arresting grandpas who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6. MDEA hasn’t said much, and they’ve got their hands full with fentanyl, which is also being trafficked here by foreign criminal gangs.”
On June 29, 2023, police in Carmel, Maine, in Penobscot County, arrested four Chinese men on charges of cultivating marijuana (500 or more cannabis plants) and unlawful trafficking of scheduled drugs. Both are Class B felonies.
Authorities began investigating at the request of Carmel’s town administrator, Kevin Howell, who reported suspected illegal marijuana grow sites in three separate locations in the town.
Mr. Howell found that all three properties had been purchased “around the same time from individuals who weren’t local to the area,” according to the written affidavit of Detective Steven Saucier of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office.
The document also states that suspects in all three locations had requested an increase in their power supply.
Court documents included power usage records that showed massive amounts of electricity consumed at the Main Road residence over two years.
The most significant bill total was $6,900 over a 30-day period that ended on Dec. 14, 2022, according to court documents.
One of the defendants told investigators that he invested $900,000 in the marijuana grow site with money he borrowed from a relative and that he was “going to be dead.”
Regional electricity provider Central Maine Power didn’t return an email from The Epoch Times asking whether the company was required to report sustained spikes in residential power consumption to authorities, since these increases often indicate illegal drug cultivation.
Mr. Solboleski said the amount of electricity required to run an illegal marijuana grow site is about 400 amps, which requires a commercial-grade delivery system to power the grow light system and heavy-duty pumps to dissipate the heat produced by the lights.
The illegal cultivators then ship the cultivated marijuana out of the state by ground or air transportation, he said.
“It’s grown here in a processing facility—that’s it as far as this operation goes,” Mr. Soboleski said of the Wilton facility. “They grow it here specifically to ship it out of state. Hence the box trucks and the airfield.
“I have a suspicion where the airfield is located—up near the Bangor area. I’ve been told that, but I can’t verify with fact.”
As for transnational crime, Mr. Soboleski said it’s unknown whether these Chinese marijuana grow sites have links to the communist party in China.
“The feds won’t get involved in this at all. The lack of prosecutions limits local authorities, whether it’s a sheriff or a local authority,” he said.
“I sat and talked with a sheriff and state police and had these conversations. Unfortunately, it’s the lack of prosecutorial efforts that’s causing the problem.”
“My bill ... was the only bill dealing with this situation to be let into the 2nd Session for January [2024],” Mr. Andrews wrote on Facebook.
“We’ve had some great meetings with stakeholders already and I’m hopeful for bipartisan support to take on this clear and present danger to our state.”
Maine has a Democratic trifecta; Democrats control the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature. The state’s House of Representatives consists of 80 Democrats and 68 Republicans in 151 voting districts.
Mr. Soboleski said he recently began a “deep dive” into the extent to which taxpayer money supports loans to Chinese foreign nationals by certain banks to purchase homes in rural Maine—which are then converted to illegal marijuana grows as part of a larger operation.
“I’m extremely concerned about fentanyl and harder drugs that could be coming through,” he said.
Mr. Soboleski said it’s uncertain whether Maine voters will elect new leadership in 2024 that will address the illegal cannabis problem head-on.
He said it hasn’t become a major issue yet.
“It isn’t on the radar and in everyone’s face as it should be right now,” Mr. Soboleski said.
He said that for now, he will continue to knock on doors until he gets the answers he’s looking for.
Mr. Soboleski carries a concealed 9mm handgun for his protection.
“I’m not overly concerned with my safety,” he said. “But I don’t gamble.”
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