FBI Busts a Group of Chinese Nationals Allegedly Involved in a Drug Ring

Articles | July 9, 2025 | by Catholics for Catholics

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The group, which operated mostly in Massachusetts and Maine, also smuggled illegal aliens and forced them to work.

By Catholics for Catholics

FBI agents seized a marijuana trafficking ring run by Chinese nationals, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Federal officials charged seven Chinese nationals over an alleged marijuana scheme in Maine and Massachusetts. FBI investigators said the operation created millions of dollars by distributing marijuana in kilogram-sized bulks in a plot that started in 2020, according to a Daily Wire story.

Federal prosecutors charged Jianxiong Chen, the 39-year-old alleged mastermind, Yuxiong Wu, 26, 38-year-old Dinghui Li, 35-year-old Dechao Ma, 35-year-old Peng Lian Zhu, 35-year-old Hongbin Wu, and 47-year-old Yanrong Zhu. Yanrong Zhu “remains a fugitive,” while the others were all taken into federal custody, according to the DOJ. 

“This case pulls back the curtain on a sprawling criminal enterprise that exploited our immigration system and our communities for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Leah Foley. “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.”

Chen, who lived in Braintree, Massachusetts, a city about 12 miles south of Boston, smuggled Chinese nationals over the Mexican border and forced them to work at marijuana grow houses to pay off the smuggling fees and get their passports back, said FBI agent Ted Docks.  Besides Braintree, there were grow houses in the Massachusetts cities of Melrose and Greenfield.

Justice Department officials said that all of the accused are charged with conspiracy to manufacture, distribute, and possess with intent to distribute marijuana, and many face money laundering charges as well. Chen, who investigators say was the brain behind the operation, is also charged with smuggling aliens into the United States.