Invasion of the Homeland: How China is Using Illegal Marijuana to Build a Criminal Network Across America

On September 18, 2025, the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability held a hearing regarding the vast and sophisticated criminal network Chine is building across the United States using illegal marijuana grows as its infrastructure. Witnesses included:

Mr. Donnie Anderson Director, Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics

Mr. Paul Larkin, Rumpel Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation

Mr. Christopher Urben, Former Agent, Drug Enforcement Administration

Highlights

• China has created and is growing a vast, complex, and sophisticated criminal network using illegal marijuana grows.

• Chinese TCOs (Transnational Criminal Organizations) are more sophisticated and complex than law enforcement across the nation has never seen before.

• Many illegal grow operations are located near critical infrastructure, like military basis, munitions facilities, pipelines, etc.

• China owns or leases 380,000 acres of American land.

• There is a rise in violent crime linked to black market marijuana, including homicides.

• Witness Mr. Urban asserts that “state and local governments individually do not have the necessary resources to attack and dismantle Chinese marijuana trafficking networks. State and local governments typically lack the subject matter experts, language skills, data scientists, confidential sources, and other law enforcement capabilities that are needed to address the threat. Federal funding, coordination, and authority, combined with state and local resources, intelligence, and their authorities, is desperately needed.”

Following are more detailed highlights and timestamps for different sections of the meeting.

Timestamp 21:14 - Introduction by US Representative Josh Brecheen, eastern Oklahoma

• Mr. Brecheen gave an narrative of how illegal grows are commonly formed in Oklahoma: Chinese nationals affiliated with a criminal organization cross the border and move to Oklahoma with workers lured by the false promise of good work. They approach a local resident and offer several hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase land under the resident’s name; the resident is allowed to keep a share of that money. An illegal grow is set up. Workers work 14 hr days under the watch of armed guards and live in poor conditions. Our country has thousands of illegal grow operations.

• These operations serve as fronts for human and drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, and money laundering.

• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is creating and expanding an underground criminal network in the United States that is a threat to our national security.

• This is a sophisticated network that crosses "state and national lines beyond the normal capabilities of state and local law enforcement to combat. These agencies need the help of federal law enforcement to unravel these criminal networks. In fact, some of the foreign nationals running these grow operations are more heavily armed than local law enforcement.”

Timestamp 33:50 - 50:58: Witness Introduction and witness statements

Note that full written witness statements are available at the resource link below.

Mr. Donnie Anderson

Director, Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics

• This topic is of public safety interest and in the interest of national security.

• “The impact of black market marijuana in Oklahoma is unlike anything I have ever encountered in my career.”

• State authorities have documented a sharp rise in violent crime linked to black market marijuana operations masquerading as legal enterprises.

  • In 2022, four Chinese nationals were executed at an illegal marijuana farm near Hennessey, OK.

  • In April 2025 law enforcement arrested multiple suspects in connection to a robbery and homicide at a grow site in Oklahoma. The victim was fatally shot.

  • In July 2025 a Canadian national was found murdered execution-style at a grow operation near Lake Thunderbird just east of Norman, Oklahoma. The death is believed to be a result of a targeted robbery.

• There are lots of barriers to enforcement. One huge barrier is that these organizations communicate by WeChat, which is Chinese controlled and cannot be monitored.

• Chinese operated grows circumvent owner residency requirements through fraudulent ownership. In one case, a single Oklahoman was listed as the owner of approximately 300 marijuana farms in Oklahoma.

• Fraudulent ownership is facilitated by consulting firms, real estate agents, and attorneys who help establish these shell operations.

• Alarmingly, many of these grow operations are located near critical infrastructure, including military bases, pipelines, and one munitions plant responsible for maintaining 1/3 of the US munitions supply.

• There is no doubt that the Chinese government has some involvement in these illegal grows, as evidenced by financial transfers and connections to businesses owned by the Chinese government.

Mr. Paul Larkin

Rumpel Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation

• One of the primary rationales for the legalization of cannabis is that it would eliminate the back market. This has not proven to be true.

• This is a coast-to-coast issue, a national problem.

Mr. Christopher Urben

Former Agent, Drug Enforcement Administration

• Chinese Organized crime is involved in a wide range of criminal activity globally, including:

  • supplying precursor chemicals used in fentanyl production in Mexico

  • becoming the primary money launderers for the Mexican cartels

  • human trafficking networks

  • global operations that corrupt government authorities

  • wildlife trafficking networks

  • Chinese-controlled marijuana cultivation within the United States

• Starting in 2017, Chinese money launderers began investing their profits into marijuana cultivation and distribution operations. They trafficked Chinese citizens into the US to live at the grow location, then trafficked the marijuana to cities for sale.

• “State and local governments individually do not have the necessary resources to attack and dismantle Chinese marijuana trafficking networks. State and local governments typically lack the subject matter experts, language skills, data scientists, confidential sources, and other law enforcement capabilities that are needed to address the threat. Federal funding, coordination, and authority, combined with state and local resources, intelligence, and their authorities, is desperately needed.”

Timestamp 50:58 - 1: 07:55, 1:32:32 - 2:15:47 Questioning witnesses

More details on the problem

• Chinese TCOs (Transnational Criminal Organizations) are more sophisticated and complex than law enforcement across the nation has never seen before. They are layered and hidden under many layers of LLCs and ownerships. It’s more of a global issue; activity has been seen in Latin America.

• China owns or leases 380,000 acres of American land, including around the largest military installations. We need to be able to identify all foreign nationals in acquisitions of property for purchase or for leasing. The burden would be on property owners and real estate agents to identify when foreign nationals are involved.

• Siskiyou County, California Board of Supervisors has requested that Governor Gavin Newsom proclaim a state of emergency regarding illegal pesticides and illicit cannabis operations (entered into the record by Representative Andrew Ogles, TN).

• Representative Ogles states that the CCP is an existential threat to US. It has set up operations to leverage both legal and illegal operations. CCP works hand-in-hand with cartels in Mexico to undermine this country. CCP is setting up operations in this country to destroy it.

• Revenue streams benefiting Chinese organized crime promote access to different levels of government and different entities they can corrupt - for example financial institutions.

• How have Chinese criminals been hiding themselves in “polite society"? Initially they stayed away from the more violent crime like homicide (that has changed recently), and instead focused on low risk criminal activity like money laundering, and marijuana grows.

• No other organized crime group has had a communication tool similar to WeChat. We can't wiretap it.

• China is the most heavily surveilled nation in the world. It’s hard to believe that the CCP is not aware of what Chinese nationals are doing in the US. There is evidence that the Supreme Court has said would be sufficient to justify a guilty verdict for conspiracy to engage in this activity.

• Mr. Larkin states that “The Chinese are playing the long game. They can do this for decades, for centuries. They don’t care. But we can’t do that. We have to act now.”

Comments on what it would take to effectively address this problem.

• This would require: federal funding and a federal task force and counterintelligence, IRS, Fish and Wildlife, partnering with state and locals; subject matter experts; translators; data scientists; funding to cultivate confidential sources; state and federal prosecutors; and the ability to move from state to state to enforce the law.

• We need to use racketeering and money laundering laws to target those at high levels of the organization. These organizations need to know that violation of US laws will result in severe penalties.

• Money laundering for Mexican cartels used to cost 7 - 10%. Chinese criminal organizations do it for 1 - 2%. High level prosecutions of command and control are critical to address this issue.

Comments on rescheduling and legalizing

• Mr. Larkin asserts that rescheduling would be a mistake. The legal market makes transnational criminal activity easier, as they can operate in the legal market as well. In fact, they target states with more progressive laws so they can have large outdoor grows and the like.

• Mr. Larkin states it is not wise to legalize marijuana federally. It is a problematic drug when you use it heavily and on a long term basis. The FDA determines when a drug is safe, effective, and uniformly made. The FDA has not been able to say that about the cannabis plant because it’s not.

• Cannabis is not the same today. It used to be 3 - 6% THC. Now it can be up to 40% THC in the plant and up to 90% in processed form.

• Mr. Knott inquired, “Has there been a successful state system that controls the supply of marijuana to deliver only safe product to the consumer?” Mr Larkin responded, “Not to my knowledge. The problem is there is too great an amount of dis-uniformity in the product that’s being sold."

Comments on open border policies

• In 2024, 79,000 nationals were encountered at the border, up from an average of 1500 a year over the prior decade.

• The majority of Chinese nationals entering US illegally were single, military-age men.

• Mr. Anderson has worked to combat illegal drugs under both open and closed border policies. Under open borders, we are inundated with illicit substances.

• Mr Knot asked, "“Can you successfully fight crime with an open border?”, to which Mr. Anderson responded, “No, absolutely not.”

Committee Chairman: Josh Brecheen, Oklahoma Representative

View House Committee Hearing page on Congress.gov.