OKLAHOMA CITY – Local, state and federal law enforcement officials continue to focus on suspected illegal marijuana farms in Oklahoma.
A multicounty grant jury indicted six people last week in connection with two separate large-scale seizures of illegal marijuana by the state Attorney General’s Organized Crime Task Force and partner law enforcement agencies.
In the first case, grand jurors indicted an Oklahoman and four Chinese nationals for conspiracy to defraud the state, arising from a Nov. 16, 2023, marijuana seizure in Pottawatomie County. Charged were Paul Wayne Baxter, 67; Beng Di Chan, 46; Min Yong Chen, 56; Zeng Chen Lau, 54; and Chen Fu Lin, 36.
Baxter faces five counts of aggravated manufacturing of a controlled dangerous substance (marijuana), while Beng, Min, Zeng and Chen face one count apiece. Min is charged with possession of an offensive weapon while in commission of a felony, and Min and Baxter face one count each of possession of proceeds from illegal activity. All five are accused of submitting false information to the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority about the true ownership of Cannabaxter Farms. All of the charges are felonies.
At that time, OCTF agents and OMMA compliance inspectors and agents were serving warrants at six marijuana grow facilities near Prague, the Attorney General’s office reported. The raid yielded 77,362 untraceable and untagged marijuana plants, nearly 2,000 pounds of untraceable and untagged harvested marijuana plants, and an assortment of firearms, officials reported.
District Attorney Adam Panter’s Drug Task Force also assisted in the operation.
In the second case, Kangbin Lee, 29, was indicted on six felony charges stemming from a Jan. 11 bust at Monster Farms in Muskogee. He faces one count each of aggravated trafficking of a controlled dangerous substance in excess of 1,000 pounds of marijuana, manufacturing a controlled dangerous substance (marijuana), trafficking of a controlled dangerous substance in excess of 25 pounds of marijuana, possession of an offensive weapon while in the commission of a felony, possession of proceeds from unlawful activity, and a pattern of criminal offenses.
That raid was led by OCTF agents with assistance from the OMMA and the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office.
The Muskogee investigation also led to an alleged half-million-dollar marijuana “stash house” in Bixby, where the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office and the Bixby Police Department assisted in uncovering additional marijuana and several firearms.
The bust originated with information received on the Attorney General’s Illegal Marijuana Tipline. A complaint form is available at oag.ok.gov by clicking on the Illegal Marijuana Tipline tab. Tips also can be sent to illegalgrow@oag.ok.gov. Tipsters can remain anonymous.
Established through state law, the OCTF works closely with federal, tribal, state, county and local law enforcement agencies to investigate crimes related to illegal marijuana grow operations, including human trafficking and the distribution of fentanyl and other deadly drugs, according to Leslie Berger, the attorney general’s press secretary.
In yet another case arising from a marijuana raid, the multicounty grand jury indicted a Tulsa County resident Feb. 29 in the wake of a large-scale marijuana seizure conducted by the Organized Crime Task Force.
Bobby Lee Hailey, 41, of Glenpool, is named in two felonies: manufacturing and trafficking a controlled dangerous substance (marijuana). Hailey filed an official request March 6 for a preliminary hearing in Wagoner County District Court on the two counts filed against him.
Those charges stem from a Nov. 9, 2023, seizure of more than 36 tons of black-market marijuana that OCTF agents found inside a metal barn in Wagoner County. Homeland Security Investigations, the OMMA, the Wagoner County Sheriff's Office, Wagoner County Commissioners and the Wagoner County Emergency Management office assisted in the operation.
Federal trial in May for Chinese owner of Maramec, Mulhall farms “The menace of illegal marijuana grows run by foreign nationals is a dire threat to public safety in Oklahoma,” Attorney General Gentner Drummond said. “This threat can only be eliminated through the concerted efforts of dedicated law enforcement professionals. I am grateful for the tremendous partnerships we have with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, OMMA, and a host of tribal, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies,” he said.
“The collaboration with our law enforcement partners across Oklahoma is vital to the public safety of our communities,” said Robert Melton, assistant special agent in charge for HSI Dallas’ Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle Division. “Operations like these help curtail the spread of other nefarious activities such as human trafficking and money laundering that often lead to even more dangerous transnational crime.”
Federal charges of money laundering conspiracy were filed against five Chinese nationals associated with marijuana farms in Maramec and Mulhall.
Four of the five individuals pleaded guilty to a federal charge of money laundering conspiracy.
Two of the four were sentenced, but one of them fled the jurisdiction and has remained at-large for six months. Yan Bing Wu was sentenced to 12 months and a day in federal prison. Tongfei Wu was sentenced to 20 months in prison, but the day before he was to report to prison he removed his electronic monitoring device and remains at-large, court records indicate.
Yuan Yuan Lo, 31, and her husband, Liang Wu, 38, have not been sentenced yet, federal court records indicate. However, the court ordered the forfeiture of a house in Country Club Terrace in Edmond and ordered Lo and Wu to forfeit $239,450 in cash that investigators identified as “proceeds obtained as a result” of criminal activity.
The alleged owner/ operator of the marijuana farms, Jiu Bing Lin, alias Jack Lin, 46, is scheduled for trial in Oklahoma City’s Western District federal court on the May 14 docket.
Lin and his wife paid $690,000 for the marijuana farm at Maramec, in Pawnee County, records show.
Lin was indicted on 10 felony charges of drug conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, four counts of laundering monetary instruments, and four counts of monetary transaction in criminally derived property. In the latter he is accused of depositing in a bank account multiple checks, each written in an amount in excess of $10,000 that was derived from illegal activity: buying, selling, and dealing in a controlled substance, marijuana.
A special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration submitted an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint accusing Lin of conspiring to manufacture and distribute 1,000 kilograms (2,204 pounds) or more of “a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of marijuana.”
Although Oklahoma voters legalized medical marijuana, the substance is still an illegal substance under federal law.