Kilos of marijuana were grown at single-family homes in suburban neighborhoods in Braintree, Melrose, Greenfield, and Maine where ring leaders withheld the passports of the laborers until they worked off their smuggling debts, according to a statement issued by the office of Leah B. Foley, US Attorney for Massachusetts.
The ring had been in operation since January 2020, smuggling workers into the US and netting millions in profits spent on luxury homes, cars, jewelry, and real estate to expand the enterprise, Foley’s office said.
Six of the seven charged in an indictment were arrested Monday morning, authorities said. They were scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Boston at 3:30 p.m. Online court records did not reflect the outcome of the arraignment hearings Monday evening.
Jianxiong Chen, 39, of Braintree, the alleged ring leader, faces numerous charges, including conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possess with intent to distribute marijuana, human smuggling, and 11 counts of money laundering, according to Foley’s statement.
All but one of Chen’s alleged co-conspirators are in their 30s. The youngest three are 35. They all live in Braintree, Melrose, Quincy, and Weymouth, prosecutors said.
The oldest of the defendants, 47-year-old Yanrong Zhu, who lives in Greenfield and Brooklyn, N.Y., remains a fugitive, prosecutors said.
“This case pulls back the curtain on a sprawling criminal enterprise that exploited our immigration system and our communities for personal gain,” Foley said in the statement. “
“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,” Foley said.
Ted E. Docks, the FBI’s special agent in charge of the Boston division said, “this takedown highlights the need for a sustained law enforcement effort, across all levels, to shut down and thoroughly investigate the organized criminal enterprises behind these unlicensed and illegal operations.”
Chen’s home in Braintree was the base of operations, prosecutors said.
When Chen’s co-conspirators delivered cash and marijuana to him, they concealed it in the engine compartments of their vehicles, Foley’s office said.
When investigators searched the home in October 2024, they found $270,000 in cash and several Chinese passports in a safe. A Porsche was parked in the driveway.
In another search that month at grow houses in Braintree and Melrose, investigators seized more than 109 kilograms of marijuana, nearly nearly $200,000 in cash, and a gold Rolex watch with a $65,000 price tag still on it, prosecutors said.
When investigators busted the grow house in Greenfield, in June 2023, they confiscated $36,900 in cash.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @talanez.
