Wyan Wang (王晓华), a marijuana farm operator in Oklahoma and the founding president of pro-Beijing Taishan Du Hu Association of America, was shot dead in his bedroom in Edmond, Okla., in Jan 2025. His web of connections extended to the boardrooms of Manhattan, where he was a protégé of real estate mogul John Lam (林建中).
Lam had developed at least 50 projects in New York and had recently teamed up with the British billionaire Richard Branson to open a trendy hotel in Midtown Manhattan. He was a prominent fund-raiser for Mayor Eric Adams. And he had served as a top leader of a New York City Chinese hometown association. It was one of a number of such groups that have maintained close ties to Beijing — and have become useful tools of the 
government to undermine politicians who oppose its authoritarian policies.
Nearly a dozen people connected with the hometown associations have tried to carve out lucrative sidelines on marijuana farms in America’s heartland, where immigrant workers have often been treated like indentured servants and the true ownership of the operations has been obscured.
Court records show that Lam purchased the land and structures for Wang to operate a marijuana farm near Oklahoma City in 2021, although Lam denied any involvement in its day-to-day operations.
Four other leaders of NYC hometown associations were found to have financed or otherwise have connections to cannabis farms in Oklahoma.
Those included Wang, whose killing in Jan 2025, along with court proceedings that followed it, offered a rare look at how the groups’ officials have sought to gain a foothold in a booming industry far from their New York headquarters.
No law bars such investors from taking stakes in Oklahoma cannabis farms, but all operations must be 75% owned by Oklahoma residents and operators must obtain a state license and local permits and fully disclose all ownership stakes in each farm.
None of the marijuana produced on Oklahoma farms can legally be sold outside the state. Even so, in 2023, Oklahoma’s attorney general estimated that 40% of the cannabis consumed in New York came from his state.
All of the farms linked to the hometown associations are under investigation by the authorities in Oklahoma; Wang’s operation was shut down in 2022 for operating without a license, but Wang continued to work in the business after that.
The leaders of the hometown associations were among thousands of Chinese-born businessmen and workers who have flocked to the state to take advantage of cheap land and an industry-written law — unique in the US — that allows growers to plant unlimited amounts of marijuana.
The law has fed a thriving market for bootleg cannabis, where suppliers ignore laws banning marijuana trafficking, undercut legitimate sellers and skirt taxes and safety testing.
Whether some of the Chinese-born businessmen have acted with the tacit approval of the government remains an open question. (The government has treated the hometown association leaders as favorite sons of the motherland.)
Lawmakers from the House Homeland Security Committee suggested China is benefiting from marijuana industry investments by Chinese-born entrepreneurs, and they cast the farms as components of a broader criminal enterprise involving human smuggling, forced labor and money laundering.
Ethnic Chinese businessmen had been “providing staggering amounts of cash to build industrial-sized farms all over the state”.
One undeniable element of the boom has been the influx in recent years of Chinese immigrants from New York who are helping to power it, sometimes while working in appalling conditions.
Of the nearly 2,500 active marijuana cultivation licenses issued by the state, at least 10% list addresses or phone numbers in one of New York City’s five boroughs, primarily the neighborhoods of Sunset Park in Brooklyn and Flushing in Queens.
One operator, Chen Xiang, said he owns 20 farms across the state.
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government to undermine politicians who oppose its authoritarian policies.
Nearly a dozen people connected with the hometown associations have tried to carve out lucrative sidelines on marijuana farms in America’s heartland, where immigrant workers have often been treated like indentured servants and the true ownership of the operations has been obscured.
Court records show that Lam purchased the land and structures for Wang to operate a marijuana farm near Oklahoma City in 2021, although Lam denied any involvement in its day-to-day operations.
Four other leaders of NYC hometown associations were found to have financed or otherwise have connections to cannabis farms in Oklahoma.
Those included Wang, whose killing in Jan 2025, along with court proceedings that followed it, offered a rare look at how the groups’ officials have sought to gain a foothold in a booming industry far from their New York headquarters.
No law bars such investors from taking stakes in Oklahoma cannabis farms, but all operations must be 75% owned by Oklahoma residents and operators must obtain a state license and local permits and fully disclose all ownership stakes in each farm.
None of the marijuana produced on Oklahoma farms can legally be sold outside the state. Even so, in 2023, Oklahoma’s attorney general estimated that 40% of the cannabis consumed in New York came from his state.
All of the farms linked to the hometown associations are under investigation by the authorities in Oklahoma; Wang’s operation was shut down in 2022 for operating without a license, but Wang continued to work in the business after that.
The leaders of the hometown associations were among thousands of Chinese-born businessmen and workers who have flocked to the state to take advantage of cheap land and an industry-written law — unique in the US — that allows growers to plant unlimited amounts of marijuana.
The law has fed a thriving market for bootleg cannabis, where suppliers ignore laws banning marijuana trafficking, undercut legitimate sellers and skirt taxes and safety testing.
Whether some of the Chinese-born businessmen have acted with the tacit approval of the government remains an open question. (The government has treated the hometown association leaders as favorite sons of the motherland.)
Lawmakers from the House Homeland Security Committee suggested China is benefiting from marijuana industry investments by Chinese-born entrepreneurs, and they cast the farms as components of a broader criminal enterprise involving human smuggling, forced labor and money laundering.
Ethnic Chinese businessmen had been “providing staggering amounts of cash to build industrial-sized farms all over the state”.
One undeniable element of the boom has been the influx in recent years of Chinese immigrants from New York who are helping to power it, sometimes while working in appalling conditions.
Of the nearly 2,500 active marijuana cultivation licenses issued by the state, at least 10% list addresses or phone numbers in one of New York City’s five boroughs, primarily the neighborhoods of Sunset Park in Brooklyn and Flushing in Queens.
One operator, Chen Xiang, said he owns 20 farms across the state.
1/n
nytimes.com/2025/12/31/us/