An alleged network of interconnected grow houses in Massachusetts and Maine that Chinese nationals operated to cultivate and distribute marijuana is no more after authorities arrested the men behind the “sprawling criminal enterprise.”
Seven Chinese nationals have been indicted in connection with what the feds describe as a “multi-million-dollar conspiracy to cultivate and distribute marijuana across the Northeast.”
The group is accused of smuggling other Chinese nationals into the U.S. to work in the grow homes, found inside single-family properties in Massachusetts and Maine. The workers didn’t have access to their passports until they repaid their smuggling debts, according to a release from the office of Massachusetts US Attorney Leah Foley.
Authorities arrested six of the defendants Tuesday morning, while the seventh, Yanrong Zhu, 47, of Greenfield, Mass. and Brooklyn, N.Y., remains a fugitive.
The group allegedly used a Braintree home as the “base” for the enterprise to cultivate and distribute kilogram-sized quantities of marijuana in bulk. The network of interconnected grow houses also included properties in Melrose and Greenfield, among other locations in the Bay State, Maine and elsewhere, according to authorities.
“This case pulls back the curtain on a sprawling criminal enterprise that exploited our immigration system and our communities for personal gain,” Foley said in a statement. “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.”
“That ends today,” she added.
Grow house operators allegedly communicated with one another through a list of marijuana cultivators and distributors from or with ties to China in the region, dubbed the “East Coast Contact List.”
Charging documents allege that the network began operating in or around January 2020.
Hellbound and Down 