The Somerset County Sheriff’s Office arrested three New York residents and charged them with cultivating and trafficking drugs after the search of a Skowhegan home on Friday revealed a large cannabis growing operation.
Sheriff Dale Lancaster said detectives and deputies executed a search warrant at a Waterville Road home. Law enforcement seized 4,760 marijuana plants, more than $7,000 in suspected illicit drug proceeds, a 2022 Toyota Tacoma truck and illicit drug-related articles.
Three people at the house were arrested. Yao Bin Cheng, 61, of Brooklyn, New York, was arrested and charged with trafficking in scheduled drugs and cultivation of marijuana. Ying Xia Liao, 59, and Xi Qiang Zhao, 56, both also of Brooklyn, have been charged with drug trafficking and cultivation of marijuana.
The suspects are being held at the Somerset County Jail in East Madison on $10,000 cash bail each. Their initial appearance is scheduled for June 5 in the Somerset County Unified Court.
Detectives from the Waterville Police Department, agents from Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as well as the Somerset and Kennebec County district attorney’s office, the U.S. attorney’s office and investigators from the Office of Cannabis Policy assisted with the investigation.
The bust is the latest in a string of illegal cannabis growing operations investigated in Maine.
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