 This story of a Chinese gangster who killed four people at a marijuana farm in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma made international headlines. ProPublica and the Frontier explored how Chinese criminal gangs, some with potential ties to the Chinese government, have become leading players in the illegal marijuana market, and not just in Oklahoma, but across the US. Here's what we found. In 2018, Oklahoma voters passed a ballot measure that legalized the license to use, sale, and growth of marijuana in Oklahoma for medicinal purposes. The law did not limit the number of dispensaries or growing operations, and licenses were meant to be approved for Oklahoma residents. But because of little enforcement, investors from other states and even other countries recruited illegal straw owners who posted the real owners of these businesses. And land in Oklahoma was pretty cheap, so pot farms started popping up like weeds to the point where the industry is now second only to the oil and gas industry in the state. Experts say Oklahoma's black market alone is now valued between $18 and $44 billion a year. State investigators found links between foreign mafias and over 3,000 illegal gross, and they say that more than 80% of the criminal groups are of Chinese origin. In November 2022, Chen Wu, a Chinese mobster who worked and invested in the illegal 10 acre marijuana farm in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma, killed four other Chinese immigrants, claiming one of them, He Chan Cheng, owed him $300,000. He Chan Cheng, or the boss, kept Oklahoma in 2020 after pleading no contest to misdemeanors in California. Those were connected to operation lights out, which was a state and federal crackdown where according to officials and court documents, suspects worked with Chinese financiers who used Chinese banks to wire millions in order to buy more than 100 houses for illegal gross. Yet the Chinese government, the most powerful police state in the world, didn't notice. And it's not just weed or Oklahoma. Based in part to massive profits from illegal marijuana, Chinese gangs have become the biggest money launderers for Latin American cartels trafficking drugs, including fentanyl, which has resulted in thousands of American deaths. Republican has also reported that the Chinese Communist Party and Mafios allegedly have a symbiosis. Western national security officials have alleged publicly that Chinese gangsters deliver services for CCP elites and spy on Chinese immigrant communities in exchange for protection. Chinese officials deny these claims. And some of the victims of these criminal rinks are the thousands of Chinese immigrants trafficked across the Mexican border to work at farms under often terrible conditions. At the murder scene I told you about, deputies thought that they were walking through mud in the dark compound, but in the morning they realized it was human excrement. The explosion of illegal weed in Oklahoma has led a state task forced to a crackdown that officials say has cut the number of illegal operations by almost half. In 2023, a bipartisan group of senators led by Oklahoma's James Lankford introduced the SOIL Act, which aims to increase oversight of foreign direct investments in agricultural land in the United States. He also said this in a committee hearing. Chinese criminal organizations where it seems the Chinese government is looking away, fully aware of what's actually happening. In February 23-4, 50 U.S. legislators wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland saying that people, including those with potential ties to the Chinese Communist Party, are reportedly operating thousands of illicit marijuana farms across the country. Read more about how Chinese gangs took over the marijuana underworld in Oklahoma and their connections to Chinese officials at the Lake and Bayo.