A Penobscot County man is the first person to face felony charges in a new Department of Justice investigation into marijuana illegally grown in Maine. The complaint filed by the U.S. state attorney’s office charges Xisen Guo with maintaining a drug-involved premises at his home in Passadumkeag.
Investigators said they discovered that Guo had used an abnormally large amount of electricity at his residence since March 2020. Penobscot County Sheriff officers searched the home in late February and found almost 40 pounds of marijuana grown without a state approved license.
A naturalized U.S. citizen originally born in China, Guo faces a 20-year-federal sentence if convicted. He has yet to be formally indicted by a grand jury. At his detention hearing on Monday afternoon, a federal judge ordered Guo be released on a $5,000 bond.
A statement from the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maine said there are approximately 100 active illegal growing operations in Maine, which may have ties to criminal enterprises. Guo’s attorney Tom Zerillo said he’s had no indication that authorities are linking his client to larger criminal organizations.
"I have no indication that anyone’s provided me of anything like that here," said Zerillo. "At this point as far as charges, all we can really say is that he denies them wholeheartedly. But again, we’ll learn more about this case as we go through the discovery process."
Read the full statement issued by U.S. Attorney Darcie McElwee below.
My office and multiple federal agencies, including the DEA, FBI, Homeland Security, and IRS, have been actively and directly working with local and state law enforcement partners in a coordinated response to the illegal marijuana grows operating predominantly in central Maine. Simultaneously, my office continues to investigate individuals involved in this activity whose conduct implicates a substantial federal interest. According to the DEA, there are currently “transnational criminal organizations” involved in illegal marijuana growing activities in at least 20 states. The possibility that organized criminal enterprises with alleged ties to China are using Maine properties to profit from unlicensed marijuana operations and interstate distribution makes it clear that there is need for a strong and sustained federal, state and local effort to shut down these operations and to determine when and where there are federal interests to pursue. In Maine, we have seen individuals who are living legally in the U.S. coming from areas of New York and Massachusetts to operate these illegal operations, and we will continue to investigate who is directing and profiting from these operations.
Thwarting this activity is a priority for the U.S. Attorney’s Office and for the Department of Justice, and we will continue to marshal every tool at our disposal in this effort as appropriate. I cannot speak more highly of the collaborative and coordinated efforts that have taken place across Maine to date. Based on information currently available to federal investigators, there are approximately 100 active of these illicit marijuana grows operating in Maine. The success of our collective efforts is already evident with 40+ operations shut down and multiple arrests made over the last several months. We expect this law enforcement action to continue until the individuals operating these illegal grows come to understand that Maine is not a safe or hospitable place for such activity.
To preserve the integrity and capabilities of any ongoing investigations, we will decline to provide further details at this time.
