OKLAHOMA CITY – Four of the five Chinese individuals linked to marijuana farms in Maramec and Mulhall 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.
The alleged owner/operator of the marijuana farms is scheduled for trial in Oklahoma City’s Western District federal court next month on 10 felony charges.
Jiu Bing Lin, alias Jack Lin, 45, was indicted on 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 illegal under federal law.
A joint investigation by the DEA and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control “revealed that Lin is engaged in the distribution of black-market marijuana,” the DEA agent informed the court.
A federal grand jury in OKC returned an indictment on Oct. 19, 2022, charging Yuan Yuan Luo, 30, and her husband, Liang Wu, 37; his sister, Yan Bing Wu, 34, who lived in Colorado; and another family member, Tongfei Wu, 35, with money laundering conspiracy. All four pleaded guilty on March 6, 2023.
The illegal activities cited in the indictment spanned from April 2021 through March 2022, court records reflect.
During a search warrant executed Nov. 8, 2022, at a residence in Country Club Terrace in Edmond, DEA agents and other officers found numerous documents that “suggested the residents were tied” to a marijuana farm at 355630 E. 5400 Road in Maramec, in Pawnee County.
OBNDD agents inspected marijuana grow operations at the Maramec location on Nov. 29, 2022. One of the marijuana farms is listed as Jack Lin LLC, which law enforcement officers subsequently confirmed is owned by Jiu Bing Lin and his wife, Yanyun Zhu. The other farm was identified as DDLQ LLC; its license expired on Dec. 6, 2022, Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority records indicate.
Investigators learned that Jiu Bing Lin paid $690,000 for the Maramec land in December 2019 and placed the property in his wife’s name; nevertheless, he maintained managerial and business control over the operation.
OBNDD officers later said that while touring the Maramec site they were shown three duffel bags that contained approximately 75 pounds of undocumented marijuana. Agents said they saw no “METRC” [marijuana enforcement tracking reporting compliance] tags on the product; METRC is the web-based software platform selected by the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority as the statewide tracking system.
Throughout grow houses on the property OBNDD personnel “observed several hundred plants lacking METRC tags.”
Maramec, Mulhall farms searched Investigators with the OBNDD, DEA, the State Fire Marshal’s office, the state Department of Environmental Quality, and the Pawnee County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant at the Maramec property. Officers seized 17,334 marijuana plants and approximately 745 pounds of marijuana.
Investigators subsequently discovered that Jiu Bing Lin also owns property at 13586 N. U.S. Highway 77, near Mulhall. That Logan County marijuana farm is registered under the name Qin Fang, the husband of Yan Bing Wu. However, after it was identified by law enforcement officers as “being out of compliance with state law and operating on the black market,” Jiu Bing Lin deeded that land on March 7, 2023, to his son, investigators reported.
OBNDD officers inspected the Mulhall farm on Jan. 31, 2023, and found evidence indicating the owners “are engaged in black-market marijuana distribution,” the DEA special agent wrote. For example, multiple duffel bags contained vacuum-sealed marijuana and plastic totes full of processed marijuana that was not labeled and thus not documented.
More than 100 pounds of undocumented processed marijuana was “ready for immediate sale,” according to a DEA agent’s affidavit.
When OBNDD personnel conducted a follow- up inspection at the Mulhall site on March 15, 2023, agents found four black trash bags containing marijuana buds. The bags and the marijuana flowers in them were untagged and had no METRC stickers on them.
Since that was the second time law enforcement officers had found untagged and undocumented marijuana product on the property, agents seized the bags, which weighed approximately 84 pounds.
$239,450 cash, house forfeited DEA and OBNDD agents served a search warrant on Lin’s primary residence in Edmond on April 5, 2023, and confiscated six rifles and four handguns; one of the rifles was in the attic next to a metal tin containing more than 300 .223-caliber rounds of armor-piercing ammunition. Agents also found “what appeared to be drug ledgers inside the residence,” the DEA affidavit relates.
Also found were “numerous” documents tying Lin to both the Maramec and Mulhall properties, the agent reported.
The federal government initiated forfeiture proceedings against Lin’s house in Edmond and on both marijuana farms.
Yan Bing Wu was sentenced to 12 months and a day in federal prison.
Tongfei Wu was sentenced to 20 months in prison, starting Aug. 2, 2023. 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 and Liang Wu have not been sentenced yet. However, the court ordered the forfeiture of the house in Country Club Terrace in Edmond, and ordered Yuan Yuan Lo and Liang Wu to forfeit $239,450 in cash that investigators identified as “proceeds obtained as a result” of criminal activity.
During a discussion with the Oklahoma Farm Report’s KC Sheperd about illegal marijuana operations, state Attorney General Gentner Drummond vowed, “We’re going to find them and we’re going to put them out of work.”
Since the state began weeding out illegal marijuana operations, the number of marijuana farms has declined by 3,791 in the last 22 months: from 8,062 on April 10, 2022, to 4,271 on Feb. 12 this year.