August 8, 2024 • 29 mins
Steve Robinson, editor-in-chief of The Main Wire, discusses the issue of the Chinese mafia taking over Maine through illegal marijuana cultivation and trafficking. He explains that a leaked memo from the Department of Homeland Security revealed the presence of 270 Chinese mafia sites in Maine. Robinson and his team have identified over 300 of these sites and have been instrumental in exposing the criminal conspiracy. However, the issue has not received widespread national attention, possibly due to the reluctance of law enforcement and politicians to acknowledge the involvement of Chinese individuals. Robinson also highlights the fear and lack of courage among Mainers in speaking out against the corrupt government and the cultural problem it poses. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Last episode, I talked about visiting Singapore and how it
immediately makes you wonder why our cities in America aren't
better cared for. I talked about the mentality that believes
(00:29):
the chaos is the price we pay for freedom, and
the apathy that creates disorder. A few people wrote that
it's a lack of patriotism that we see on display in.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
All the bad.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Things kind of going on in our country, but in
particular the things that we see in our cities. And
one person said, Jessic Kelly, who had been on the
show previously, talks about this a lot. Jesse actually had
a series of tweets a few days ago about this
that I'll read to you. Jesse tweets, a genuine love
(01:07):
of country is the essential element to maintaining a nation.
Trials and troubles will come, but a nation full of
patriots will survive. A nation without them will not. Why
Because patriotism creates in people a sense of duty to
the nation, a sense of obligation. When the trash can
is full in my house, I take it out. Why
(01:29):
I could leave it? Nobody can make me take it out.
I take it out because I love and appreciate my house,
so I want to maintain it and improve it on
a bigger scale. That's patriotism.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Jesse's right.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Obviously, patriotism is at an all time low, and love
of country is so needed for a country to succeed.
I talk about that a lot. I think about that
a lot. I definitely instill it in my kids. I
think that we should be doing a better job instilling
it in the nation's kids in our schools. I think
(02:02):
it should be standard. But this goes beyond that. Is
Singapore very patriotic? Maybe, or maybe they have penalties for
not behaving in an orderly fashion, or more likely it's
both right, there is punishment for disorderly behavior, and again,
(02:25):
we largely have the same punishments here. I'm not talking
about the really far out stuff in Singapore, the caning
and whatever. I was in New York City yesterday and
all the garbage cans have a little, you know, sign
on them that say you can get one hundred dollars
fine for littering. But I have never heard of that
(02:46):
ever happening, and everyone knows that never actually happens. So yes,
Singapore has the penalties, but I bet that people behave
a certain way at this point and never think, oh,
I'll be punished if I don't. It translates into our
(03:06):
personal lives too. Your kids will be better if you
discipline them, and the idea is that you won't even
have to discipline them if you get the message across
that bad behavior has consequences. Yes, your kids will behave
because they'll be good people and they'll hopefully understand what
(03:27):
it's like to live in society. But they'll also behave
because you condition them to know that bad behavior has consequences.
I really think we've taken a wrong turn with our
consequence free systems and patriotism, as important as I think
it is, alone, isn't going to be enough to save us.
(03:49):
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Email me
Carol Maarkoit Show at gmail dot com, or tweet at me.
Maybe I'll read them on a future show. How do
We Save our Culture? Coming up next in interview with
Steve Robinson. Join us after the break. Welcome back to
(04:10):
the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is
Steve Robinson, Editor in Chief, of the Main Wire.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Hi Steve, Hi Carol, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So nice to see you. So we've met recently a
few months ago, and I'm going to kick it off
on a really happy note here. But one of the
first things that you said to me, you're from Maine,
and I was like, oh, so, what kind of stuff
do you write about? And you said, well, I write
about that the Chinese mafia has mostly taken over Maine.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And I was like, oh, okay, good icebreaker. It's a
good ice breaker. It works.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I hadn't heard of that. So can you tell our
audience a little bit about your work and how have
we not heard that the Chinese mafia has taken over Maine. Well.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
About ten months ago, a immigration reporter who now works
at the New York Post, Jenny tay Tear. She published
a memo from the Department of Homeland Security that revealed
that there were between eight hundred and one thousand different
locations in the United States that were being used by
the Chinese mafia to grow marijuana and traffic it illegally.
(05:18):
The proceeds of that were being used to subsidize narcotics trafficking,
human trafficking, and some of the money was being sent
back to the People's Republic of China, according to the
leaked DHS memo, and the memo said that between two
hundred and seventy or more of those sites were actually
located in Maine, and being a reporter who covers things
(05:39):
in Maine, that immediately intrigued me, and I reached out
to Jenny and said, I want to get you up here, like,
let's go find these places. If there's two hundred and
seventy of them in Maine, I think we can probably
find them. And she wasn't able to publish, but did
have a list of some of the actual addresses that
were I guess associated with an Excel spreadsheet that was
(06:03):
also leaked. So we pulled up the deed information and
we found the owners of those properties, found some other
properties that they owned, and we very quickly began to
develop an understanding of what a Chinese mafia cultivation facility
looks like in rural Maine. And ten months later, we've
identified over three hundred of these sites and have since
(06:25):
we started actually naming names and posting addresses and revealing
the electricians who are doing work on these sites. There's
been over forty search at warrants executed, and I think
more than two dozen individuals have been arrested. US Attorney
has now moved to seize four of these properties. And
we've also found that the governor's brother, Paul Mills, who
(06:47):
is an attorney in Farmington, was the real estate title
transfer attorney for one of these properties in Kariname in
the central part of the state, and he helped transfer
the property into the ownership of a Chinese national actually
living in China. And there's no evidence, there's no evidence
that this person has ever even set foot on American soil,
(07:08):
but she's now the proud owner of twelve acres in
central Maine. And there's really no recourse for American law enforcement.
They'll never be able to interview the owner of a
drug trafficking facility if the owner lives in southeastern China.
So it's a vast, vast criminal conspiracy with multiple different organizations.
(07:31):
They kind of work in an uneasy relationship with the cartels,
the Mexican cartels, and we've only just begun to get
our arms around this problem as a state. And I
find it to be just the most interesting story in
the state that this popped up in the backyard and
was allowed to happen for you know, years, really without
(07:53):
media noticing, and if law enforcement had noticed, they really
weren't talking about it. And it's a it's very detrimental
to what's happening here in the state of Maine on
a number of levels. They're ruining our housing stock at
a time when housing it is at a generational low
and availability and a generational high end price. They're poisoning
the weed supply. They're just generally disobeying all of the laws,
(08:16):
not paying taxes, not paying fees, putting legal businesses out
of business. So it's a huge problem here for the
state of man big immigration scam as well. But fortunately,
I think the more we shine light on it, the
more we kind of generate a little bit of urgency
for law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So I guess two part follow up to that is
how is this not a bigger story? But also how
did people not notice as this became a giant issue.
I mean, main is a fairly small state, pretty sparsely populated.
How is this not noticeable?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
So it was noticeable? But it's geographically it's a big state,
so it's spread out, so it was noticeable on a
local scale, like neighbors noticed, local people in the town notice,
local law enforcement notice. But for all they knew, it
was just like a family who came up here trying
to get away from New York City or Boston in
the middle of COVID all of a sudden, Yeah, exactly,
(09:15):
that was the story. Though I've heard this, you know.
The first thing I do when I find one of
these properties is I go and talk to the neighbors,
because they've got three years of observations that they're more
than happy to share with me. And the story is
always that a young couple that speaks pretty good English
initially moves in and gets the property established, and goes
and talks with the neighbors, gives them a bottle of
(09:35):
wine and says, we're coming from Boston. We're coming from
New York City, and we're buying this property to get
away from the city because of COVID. And then that
young couple has never seen again, and there's just a
steady flow of Cantonese speaking like you know, Asian individuals
who really don't interact with the community and oftentimes never
(09:56):
leave the house at all. They get their groceries delivered
by the same U haul it shows up once a
month to take away the marijuana. So it was noticed,
but the scale and the interconnectedness of it wasn't noticed
because if you look if you look at like a
map of Maine, there are, like in the center part
of the state where I'm from, there's an area where
(10:18):
three counties converge, and that you have a like a
criminal organization that is growing marijuana in all three counties,
and there it's all within a ten mile radius. But
you have you know, maybe six or seven different local
law enforcement agencies that are tasked with enforcing the law
in those areas, and then three different county sheriffs, and
(10:41):
so all of these law enforcement divisions are siloed and
not sharing information as a matter of course, So there
wasn't an understanding of just how broad, sophisticated, coordinated, and
how all of it had a nexus to Flushing, New
York or Malden, Massachusetts. So I think that the contribution
(11:02):
that the main Wire made was to basically publish a
map of all of these places and show how the
same people are getting the four hundred ample electricity upgrades
for all of these sites, and the same people are
paying the property taxes for all of these sites, and
the same guys are doing the electricity on all of
these places. So we showed that it wasn't just a
one off, you know, some guy moving up to Maine,
(11:23):
but it was actually a coordinated, vast, criminal conspiracy that
was undermining Maine in many, many ways. And we're able
to put a face to it. And we've actually got
a documentary that we've been working on for ten months.
It's one of the most in depth, extensive investigations I've
ever worked on, and we're going to be screening it
at theaters throughout the state of Maine. So we're hoping
(11:45):
to continue to shed light on this because I think
it's a huge problem with the state of Maine and
we've only begun to wrap our arms around it.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
So for the second part of that question, why isn't
it a bigger story? Like I feel like if this
was happening, I don't know, I just I imagine if we,
you know, uncovered this kind of conspiracy in New York,
or in Florida, or in Texas or is it is
it because Maine is a smaller state and you know,
you said it's geographically quite large, so, I you know,
and uh, it's not even that small. But why why
(12:13):
isn't this like a national story?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, I do think it's received quite a bit of
national attention. I was interviewed by CBS and they ran
a piece on it. NBC ran a piece on it
last week. NPR, the national at the national level, has
covered has covered not Maine, but they've covered the phenomenon
in New Mexico and Oklahoma and California. Pro Publica covered
(12:36):
it in Oklahoma. They didn't really do any like new
original investigation. They just regurgitated what the local news had
done because there was a quadruple homicide at one of
these sites, and there's been some very serious human trafficking
in the area. But you know, so I do think
it is getting national attention. I think it would get
more national attention if the governor of the state would
acknowledge it. So far, she has yet to utter a
(12:58):
single word about the problem, and the main state police,
which is run by her appointed Department of Public Safety commissioner,
has really not been involved in many of these I
think of the forty plus search warrants, they've been involved
in three. So it's there appears to have been a
(13:19):
stand down order given to the main state police to
not be involved in this, which is kind of odd
because they're the best situated to take on a problem
like this, even the jurisdiction that they have. But you know,
it is receiving some national attention. But I think the
biggest problem is that all of the members of the
criminal conspiracy are Chinese. There's this huge reluctance on the
(13:44):
behalf of law enforcement and left wing politicians and even
some Republican or conservative members of law enforcement to acknowledge
the fact that they're they all have ties to the
People's Republic of China. You know, I don't see.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Why it doesn't know they're not even they're not Chinese Americans,
even they're they're literally from China some of them, you
know me to like say that.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
It's like a mix. It's a mix. It's like, you know,
some of them are Chinese with Malaysian passports, some of
them have legal permanent residents. Some of them, after they're busted,
will claim asylum status and then the State of Maine
kicks into high gear to protect them as much as possible.
So they're exploiting our immigration system at a very high level.
And they're also going through the Chinese consulate in New
(14:30):
York to get driver's licenses in New York, and they
can use the driver's license in New York to come
to Maine and get their license to go to marijuana
and create this kind of on paper fiction that what
they're doing is legal, and then they'll never follow any
of the rules that the regulated people have to follow,
and they'll get busted three times within two years, and
that person will lose their license, and a new person
(14:51):
from China from New York, a Chinese person from New
York will show up and they'll have their license, and
the operation just continues and they can throw as many
people as they want at it, flaunting our laws the
entire the entire process. Yeah, I mean, it's I think
it would receive more attention, and I've said this before,
it would receive more attention if it were runctions who
(15:12):
are running this. It would receive more attention if it
were you know, so called white nationalists or s pacifically.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yes, questions Chinese, like, what you know, what's really the
difference here? You know?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I mean if it were Hasidic Jews running a huge
trafficking conspiracy really about it? Democrats, oh, main Democrats would
be out there with pitchforks and torches. I could take
care of this problem themselves right as we've seen nationally.
And I also think, you know, it's because it's pot.
There's a stigma, but it's.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
It's actually I was going to ask, is pot is
growing pot legal?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And Maine yes. So the voters of Maine legalized the
adult use the adult recreational use of marijuana in twenty
sixteen twenty the legislature formalized the program for the cultivation
and sale. And that is the year where the Chinese
mafia started moving into Maine in a big way. I
(16:11):
mean you can see the house the houses, like the
real estate records show. In twenty twenty, they started buying
up properties, they started moving in and spinning up their operations.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
So why are they doing it illegally? What's the benefit there?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Because it's much more profitable. They can't they can't, you know,
they can't compete with main growers who have in some
cases decades of experience growing marijuana legally. Z But they
would have to pay their employees, their employees, they'd have
to get background checks, they would have to pay, you know,
a ten thousand dollars a year licensing fee. They would
(16:44):
have to not use pesticides and fungicides and other banned substances.
They would have to have their products tested, right, they
have to track their products. And this doesn't work if
you're Chinese mafia. You're here to make money and your
advantage is that you're not following any of the laws
or paying for any of the regulatory burden, so it's
(17:05):
profitable to grow illegally.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. What do you think
is our largest cultural problem? I imagine your answer is
going to be somewhat tied to this, or maybe something
totally different.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Actually, I think it's fear. Since I've moved back to
Maine and taken over the main wire and done a
lot of investigative reporting and interacted with you know, thousands
of manors, a lot of government officials, government employees, I
think the problem is fear. It's especially acute and Maine
(17:45):
because we have a very vindictive governor and people are
very worried about losing their pensions, getting fired, getting kicked
out of government, having their well being, their economic well
being threatened as a result of speaking out publicly about something.
And it's a very real concern. I mean during COVID
there was a a restaurant owner named Rick Savage who
(18:08):
was on Tucker Carlson Show. Actually the local media wasn't
interested in but Tucker was because he you know, openly said,
you know, these your your regulations about hanging you know,
plexiglass and wearing masks and social distancing and this is
all just stupid, Like my restaurant's going to be open.
And they they sent undercover agents into his bar on
(18:30):
multiple occasions and literally stalked him and took away his
liquor license, forced him to sell a business that was
making him four million dollars a year, and ran him
out of town. And now he's just over the border
in New Hampshire and he's got a new successful restaurant.
There's a doctor, doctor Meryl Nass, who was prescribing ivermectin
(18:50):
to her patients and you know, criticizing the middles administration.
She got hauled in front of the medical board and
has her medical license remote. So there's a lot of
fear and I think it's justified. But it also prevents
things that are bad and wrong from coming to the surface.
And you see that all over the United States. There's
(19:12):
people who are just hanging on to basically retire and
get their pension and then maybe they'll speak out, but
probably not. So. I think that across the board, the
problem is that people not necessarily lacking courage, but being
cowed into submission to tyrannical government dictates. And I mean
(19:36):
it was on display during COVID. You saw it. Yeah, absolutely,
very familiar. Yeah it was.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, no, it's you're absolutely right, and it was scary.
And I think the rewrite now that a lot of
these politicians are attempting, which is like, we didn't make
you do anything. You did it all because you wanted to.
It's a huge lie that needs constant exposure. But about fear,
I wanted to ask you, do you ever get afraid covering,
(20:03):
you know, kind of scary people who could do bad things.
I feel like, you know, I don't cover anything like that,
but even even the things I do cover. My mom
is like, do you have to criticize the president all
the time? Like can't you just say he's doing a
good job and that's it? Just go on TV and
say he's doing a good job, and I'm like, no,
I cannot, I cannot actually.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Do I'm afraid.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
But she's afraid of Like, you know, who knows what
will happen if you criticize the president. I mean, she's
from the Soviet Union. But do you do you feel
fear covering what you cover?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
For sure? For sure?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
That's okay. We like doggies.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
No, I mean, I definitely do. I mean, we've we've
upgraded our security and taken some precautions and conversations with
our local police chief about the nature of what we're doing.
You know, I think if you look at the you know,
if you do the math and you look at the
busts that have come about as a result of our
reporting and the operations that have been shuttered as a
(21:03):
result of our reporting, we've probably taken a two or
three hundred million dollar byte out of the Chinese criminal
organization with Tyson PRC. So yeah, I mean, I would
be kind of upset you took that kind of a
bite out of my business. Yeah, I would be a
little upset. We've also seen some evidence of cartel Mexican
(21:27):
cartels kind of working in cahoots with the Chinese mafia,
and there have been some low key, underreported or unreported
instances of cartels robbing the Chinese mafia when they know
there's a weak spot with some like elderly Chinese people
who just happened to be sitting on sixty five dollars
(21:48):
with no good explanation of where it came from. And
you know, I think that the Mexican cartels, it's pretty
well known that they take a they have a different
attitude towards violence than some other criminal organizations might. So yeah,
I mean it's it's scary, but I'm well armed, that's right. Good. Yeah,
I mean I'm well armed. We've got a security system,
(22:08):
you know, we we take all the precautions we can.
But at the same time, I'm not gonna you know,
live my life and fear while these these criminal these
anti social criminals, amoral criminals, exploit the people of the
main and like law enforcement isn't doing anything about it,
the government is not doing anything about it, right as politicians,
even though Republicans anything. So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna
(22:31):
go stand out in front of a mafia drug house
and jump up and down and until someone comes and
does something about it. You really understate I do, I do,
I love I love Mane a lot, and and you know,
it's it's sad to me to see what it's come to.
It's it's it's saddled with a corrupt government and some
of the highest government costs. I mean, we pay more
(22:53):
for our government and have a more corrupt government than
almost any state. I mean California. We might give California
our run church money.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
That's scary actually when you're when you're you know, second,
or when you start beating California, that's an issue.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I mean, our legislature in this past section, both houses
controlled by Democrats. You know, in eighty percent of the
people who work in government or Democrats. The governor's a Democrat. Uh.
You know, we have this huge nonprofit industrial complex that's
all getting government money. They're like the fifth arm of
government here and all solidly left wing Democrat. So we
(23:31):
really have one party government. Even when Lapago was in office,
we essentially had one party government because anything he wanted
to do was just totally undermined and you know, he
was hamstrung at every every attempt. So we've had one
party rule for effectively three decades. Yeah, and what we're
dealing with now is the result oldest state in the Union,
(23:53):
the third highest taxes. Our schools are crap. Our schools
are so bad that they've had to change out the
testing systems so that you can't make apples to oranges
comparisons before and after the pandemic. So they've like ruined
our ability to measure the year over year progress going
back longer than two years, right, design, Yeah, it is,
(24:16):
it is. I mean, they figured out a long time
ago that you know, the best way to avoid the
disclosure of a embarrassing public record is to just not
create a public record. Ever, so that's what they do now.
You know, especially with immigration status. You know, they're not
going to ask for immigration status. And the best thing
that the those administration has come up with to try
and fix our problems is they're going to create the
(24:37):
Office of New Americans. But the goal of bringing seventy
five thousand new workers to the state of Maine, mostly migrants,
and we have right now. The last time I checked,
we had a little over three thousand units of housing
for sale.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
That's going to go well, yeah, all right, No one
has been able to answer my question right, Yeah, you know,
there it's very clear that their solution to the problem
is just unbridled open borders, immigration and more welfare.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And when you're already one of the tax stints in
the country, you know something has to give, you know,
something that I don't think that's going.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
To work just lunch, it's not It's not going to
work the way that they intended to. So you spend
your time writing about the state you love, defending the
state you love. Do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Well?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
No, not really. I mean I think i've you know,
I've had some success professionally, but there are still plenty
of other things I want to do. You know, I'd
like to, you know, start a family. I'd like to,
you know, start a business or something like that. You know,
I still after, you know, a ten year career in media.
(25:54):
It's like, the only thing I really know how to
do is talk ship. You know, I don't know, you know,
how you.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Know, how to catch Chinese mafia. I feel like that
could be a business, you know, Steve's Chinese mafia catching business.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Now maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Hopefully hopefully the movie does well, but we're you know,
you know, I've thought about, you know, maybe going out
and taking of course and becoming an electrician or something
like that, learning some kind of practical skill.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I'd like to become a better fly fisherman. I mean,
you know, if I could, if I was a better
fly fisherman, and I could wire up someone's circuit breaker box,
and I had a bunch of kids running around, and
then maybe I feel like I had made it. But
for me, having made it was never really tied to
professional success or the amount of money you made. You know,
I've I guess the moment where I had made it
(26:49):
was in a we kind of bugged out of the
city like you did. My wife and I we were
living in Boston and during COVID, and in I think
early twenty twenty, we buy a camp or van and
grabbed their dog, Cancil, their lease and just drove around
the country for a year and a half, put thirty
five thousand miles on the van and just said that,
(27:10):
you know, lived and didn't really have jobs, just kind
of lived buff our savings. And then at that moment
I felt like I'd made it. Yeah that's a great life.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah, that's you know, that easily be step one in
you know, the vision of you know, learning electrician work
and being becoming a better fly fishermen and having a
bunch of kids. You know, step one might have been
getting yourself out of Boston and traveling the country.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, so I guess in the process, maybe I'm I'm
on step one. I don't know how many steps there
are on having it is only too you know, Yeah
it could be, but you know, yeah, I mean for me,
it's like I don't know much. How much money do
you need to make before you feel like you've made
it more? More and more of these days thanks to buy.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I love talking to you. You're super interesting and I
think that you just expose something that I don't think
a lot of people know about. And here with your
best tip for my listeners on how they can improve
their lives.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Oh geez, I don't know. I'm very skeptical to uh
to give the advice like that, get a dog, that's
my dogs my life, good helping help me exercise, to
get a dog, go to the gym. Read read Isaac Asimov,
(28:35):
good science fiction.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, these are all these are all very solid tips.
You know. I think you're you're better at advice giving
than you imagine. Thank you so much for coming on. Steve.
He is Steve Robinson the main Wire dot Com. Check
him out. His work is really fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Thank you, Steve, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Kara, thanks so much for listening to The Carol marco
Wich Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Last episode, I talked about visiting Singapore and how it
immediately makes you wonder why our cities in America aren't
better cared for. I talked about the mentality that believes
(00:29):
the chaos is the price we pay for freedom, and
the apathy that creates disorder. A few people wrote that
it's a lack of patriotism that we see on display in.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
All the bad.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Things kind of going on in our country, but in
particular the things that we see in our cities. And
one person said, Jessic Kelly, who had been on the
show previously, talks about this a lot. Jesse actually had
a series of tweets a few days ago about this
that I'll read to you. Jesse tweets, a genuine love
(01:07):
of country is the essential element to maintaining a nation.
Trials and troubles will come, but a nation full of
patriots will survive. A nation without them will not. Why
Because patriotism creates in people a sense of duty to
the nation, a sense of obligation. When the trash can
is full in my house, I take it out. Why
(01:29):
I could leave it? Nobody can make me take it out.
I take it out because I love and appreciate my house,
so I want to maintain it and improve it on
a bigger scale. That's patriotism.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Jesse's right.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Obviously, patriotism is at an all time low, and love
of country is so needed for a country to succeed.
I talk about that a lot. I think about that
a lot. I definitely instill it in my kids. I
think that we should be doing a better job instilling
it in the nation's kids in our schools. I think
(02:02):
it should be standard. But this goes beyond that. Is
Singapore very patriotic? Maybe, or maybe they have penalties for
not behaving in an orderly fashion, or more likely it's
both right, there is punishment for disorderly behavior, and again,
(02:25):
we largely have the same punishments here. I'm not talking
about the really far out stuff in Singapore, the caning
and whatever. I was in New York City yesterday and
all the garbage cans have a little, you know, sign
on them that say you can get one hundred dollars
fine for littering. But I have never heard of that
(02:46):
ever happening, and everyone knows that never actually happens. So yes,
Singapore has the penalties, but I bet that people behave
a certain way at this point and never think, oh,
I'll be punished if I don't. It translates into our
(03:06):
personal lives too. Your kids will be better if you
discipline them, and the idea is that you won't even
have to discipline them if you get the message across
that bad behavior has consequences. Yes, your kids will behave
because they'll be good people and they'll hopefully understand what
(03:27):
it's like to live in society. But they'll also behave
because you condition them to know that bad behavior has consequences.
I really think we've taken a wrong turn with our
consequence free systems and patriotism, as important as I think
it is, alone, isn't going to be enough to save us.
(03:49):
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Email me
Carol Maarkoit Show at gmail dot com, or tweet at me.
Maybe I'll read them on a future show. How do
We Save our Culture? Coming up next in interview with
Steve Robinson. Join us after the break. Welcome back to
(04:10):
the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is
Steve Robinson, Editor in Chief, of the Main Wire.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Hi Steve, Hi Carol, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So nice to see you. So we've met recently a
few months ago, and I'm going to kick it off
on a really happy note here. But one of the
first things that you said to me, you're from Maine,
and I was like, oh, so, what kind of stuff
do you write about? And you said, well, I write
about that the Chinese mafia has mostly taken over Maine.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And I was like, oh, okay, good icebreaker. It's a
good ice breaker. It works.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
I hadn't heard of that. So can you tell our
audience a little bit about your work and how have
we not heard that the Chinese mafia has taken over Maine. Well.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
About ten months ago, a immigration reporter who now works
at the New York Post, Jenny tay Tear. She published
a memo from the Department of Homeland Security that revealed
that there were between eight hundred and one thousand different
locations in the United States that were being used by
the Chinese mafia to grow marijuana and traffic it illegally.
(05:18):
The proceeds of that were being used to subsidize narcotics trafficking,
human trafficking, and some of the money was being sent
back to the People's Republic of China, according to the
leaked DHS memo, and the memo said that between two
hundred and seventy or more of those sites were actually
located in Maine, and being a reporter who covers things
(05:39):
in Maine, that immediately intrigued me, and I reached out
to Jenny and said, I want to get you up here, like,
let's go find these places. If there's two hundred and
seventy of them in Maine, I think we can probably
find them. And she wasn't able to publish, but did
have a list of some of the actual addresses that
were I guess associated with an Excel spreadsheet that was
(06:03):
also leaked. So we pulled up the deed information and
we found the owners of those properties, found some other
properties that they owned, and we very quickly began to
develop an understanding of what a Chinese mafia cultivation facility
looks like in rural Maine. And ten months later, we've
identified over three hundred of these sites and have since
(06:25):
we started actually naming names and posting addresses and revealing
the electricians who are doing work on these sites. There's
been over forty search at warrants executed, and I think
more than two dozen individuals have been arrested. US Attorney
has now moved to seize four of these properties. And
we've also found that the governor's brother, Paul Mills, who
(06:47):
is an attorney in Farmington, was the real estate title
transfer attorney for one of these properties in Kariname in
the central part of the state, and he helped transfer
the property into the ownership of a Chinese national actually
living in China. And there's no evidence, there's no evidence
that this person has ever even set foot on American soil,
(07:08):
but she's now the proud owner of twelve acres in
central Maine. And there's really no recourse for American law enforcement.
They'll never be able to interview the owner of a
drug trafficking facility if the owner lives in southeastern China.
So it's a vast, vast criminal conspiracy with multiple different organizations.
(07:31):
They kind of work in an uneasy relationship with the cartels,
the Mexican cartels, and we've only just begun to get
our arms around this problem as a state. And I
find it to be just the most interesting story in
the state that this popped up in the backyard and
was allowed to happen for you know, years, really without
(07:53):
media noticing, and if law enforcement had noticed, they really
weren't talking about it. And it's a it's very detrimental
to what's happening here in the state of Maine on
a number of levels. They're ruining our housing stock at
a time when housing it is at a generational low
and availability and a generational high end price. They're poisoning
the weed supply. They're just generally disobeying all of the laws,
(08:16):
not paying taxes, not paying fees, putting legal businesses out
of business. So it's a huge problem here for the
state of man big immigration scam as well. But fortunately,
I think the more we shine light on it, the
more we kind of generate a little bit of urgency
for law enforcement.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So I guess two part follow up to that is
how is this not a bigger story? But also how
did people not notice as this became a giant issue.
I mean, main is a fairly small state, pretty sparsely populated.
How is this not noticeable?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
So it was noticeable? But it's geographically it's a big state,
so it's spread out, so it was noticeable on a
local scale, like neighbors noticed, local people in the town notice,
local law enforcement notice. But for all they knew, it
was just like a family who came up here trying
to get away from New York City or Boston in
the middle of COVID all of a sudden, Yeah, exactly,
(09:15):
that was the story. Though I've heard this, you know.
The first thing I do when I find one of
these properties is I go and talk to the neighbors,
because they've got three years of observations that they're more
than happy to share with me. And the story is
always that a young couple that speaks pretty good English
initially moves in and gets the property established, and goes
and talks with the neighbors, gives them a bottle of
(09:35):
wine and says, we're coming from Boston. We're coming from
New York City, and we're buying this property to get
away from the city because of COVID. And then that
young couple has never seen again, and there's just a
steady flow of Cantonese speaking like you know, Asian individuals
who really don't interact with the community and oftentimes never
(09:56):
leave the house at all. They get their groceries delivered
by the same U haul it shows up once a
month to take away the marijuana. So it was noticed,
but the scale and the interconnectedness of it wasn't noticed
because if you look if you look at like a
map of Maine, there are, like in the center part
of the state where I'm from, there's an area where
(10:18):
three counties converge, and that you have a like a
criminal organization that is growing marijuana in all three counties,
and there it's all within a ten mile radius. But
you have you know, maybe six or seven different local
law enforcement agencies that are tasked with enforcing the law
in those areas, and then three different county sheriffs, and
(10:41):
so all of these law enforcement divisions are siloed and
not sharing information as a matter of course, So there
wasn't an understanding of just how broad, sophisticated, coordinated, and
how all of it had a nexus to Flushing, New
York or Malden, Massachusetts. So I think that the contribution
(11:02):
that the main Wire made was to basically publish a
map of all of these places and show how the
same people are getting the four hundred ample electricity upgrades
for all of these sites, and the same people are
paying the property taxes for all of these sites, and
the same guys are doing the electricity on all of
these places. So we showed that it wasn't just a
one off, you know, some guy moving up to Maine,
(11:23):
but it was actually a coordinated, vast, criminal conspiracy that
was undermining Maine in many, many ways. And we're able
to put a face to it. And we've actually got
a documentary that we've been working on for ten months.
It's one of the most in depth, extensive investigations I've
ever worked on, and we're going to be screening it
at theaters throughout the state of Maine. So we're hoping
(11:45):
to continue to shed light on this because I think
it's a huge problem with the state of Maine and
we've only begun to wrap our arms around it.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
So for the second part of that question, why isn't
it a bigger story? Like I feel like if this
was happening, I don't know, I just I imagine if we,
you know, uncovered this kind of conspiracy in New York,
or in Florida, or in Texas or is it is
it because Maine is a smaller state and you know,
you said it's geographically quite large, so, I you know,
and uh, it's not even that small. But why why
(12:13):
isn't this like a national story?
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, I do think it's received quite a bit of
national attention. I was interviewed by CBS and they ran
a piece on it. NBC ran a piece on it
last week. NPR, the national at the national level, has
covered has covered not Maine, but they've covered the phenomenon
in New Mexico and Oklahoma and California. Pro Publica covered
(12:36):
it in Oklahoma. They didn't really do any like new
original investigation. They just regurgitated what the local news had
done because there was a quadruple homicide at one of
these sites, and there's been some very serious human trafficking
in the area. But you know, so I do think
it is getting national attention. I think it would get
more national attention if the governor of the state would
acknowledge it. So far, she has yet to utter a
(12:58):
single word about the problem, and the main state police,
which is run by her appointed Department of Public Safety commissioner,
has really not been involved in many of these I
think of the forty plus search warrants, they've been involved
in three. So it's there appears to have been a
(13:19):
stand down order given to the main state police to
not be involved in this, which is kind of odd
because they're the best situated to take on a problem
like this, even the jurisdiction that they have. But you know,
it is receiving some national attention. But I think the
biggest problem is that all of the members of the
criminal conspiracy are Chinese. There's this huge reluctance on the
(13:44):
behalf of law enforcement and left wing politicians and even
some Republican or conservative members of law enforcement to acknowledge
the fact that they're they all have ties to the
People's Republic of China. You know, I don't see.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Why it doesn't know they're not even they're not Chinese Americans,
even they're they're literally from China some of them, you
know me to like say that.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
It's like a mix. It's a mix. It's like, you know,
some of them are Chinese with Malaysian passports, some of
them have legal permanent residents. Some of them, after they're busted,
will claim asylum status and then the State of Maine
kicks into high gear to protect them as much as possible.
So they're exploiting our immigration system at a very high level.
And they're also going through the Chinese consulate in New
(14:30):
York to get driver's licenses in New York, and they
can use the driver's license in New York to come
to Maine and get their license to go to marijuana
and create this kind of on paper fiction that what
they're doing is legal, and then they'll never follow any
of the rules that the regulated people have to follow,
and they'll get busted three times within two years, and
that person will lose their license, and a new person
(14:51):
from China from New York, a Chinese person from New
York will show up and they'll have their license, and
the operation just continues and they can throw as many
people as they want at it, flaunting our laws the
entire the entire process. Yeah, I mean, it's I think
it would receive more attention, and I've said this before,
it would receive more attention if it were runctions who
(15:12):
are running this. It would receive more attention if it
were you know, so called white nationalists or s pacifically.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Yes, questions Chinese, like, what you know, what's really the
difference here? You know?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I mean if it were Hasidic Jews running a huge
trafficking conspiracy really about it? Democrats, oh, main Democrats would
be out there with pitchforks and torches. I could take
care of this problem themselves right as we've seen nationally.
And I also think, you know, it's because it's pot.
There's a stigma, but it's.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
It's actually I was going to ask, is pot is
growing pot legal?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And Maine yes. So the voters of Maine legalized the
adult use the adult recreational use of marijuana in twenty
sixteen twenty the legislature formalized the program for the cultivation
and sale. And that is the year where the Chinese
mafia started moving into Maine in a big way. I
(16:11):
mean you can see the house the houses, like the
real estate records show. In twenty twenty, they started buying
up properties, they started moving in and spinning up their operations.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
So why are they doing it illegally? What's the benefit there?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Because it's much more profitable. They can't they can't, you know,
they can't compete with main growers who have in some
cases decades of experience growing marijuana legally. Z But they
would have to pay their employees, their employees, they'd have
to get background checks, they would have to pay, you know,
a ten thousand dollars a year licensing fee. They would
(16:44):
have to not use pesticides and fungicides and other banned substances.
They would have to have their products tested, right, they
have to track their products. And this doesn't work if
you're Chinese mafia. You're here to make money and your
advantage is that you're not following any of the laws
or paying for any of the regulatory burden, so it's
(17:05):
profitable to grow illegally.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. What do you think
is our largest cultural problem? I imagine your answer is
going to be somewhat tied to this, or maybe something
totally different.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Actually, I think it's fear. Since I've moved back to
Maine and taken over the main wire and done a
lot of investigative reporting and interacted with you know, thousands
of manors, a lot of government officials, government employees, I
think the problem is fear. It's especially acute and Maine
(17:45):
because we have a very vindictive governor and people are
very worried about losing their pensions, getting fired, getting kicked
out of government, having their well being, their economic well
being threatened as a result of speaking out publicly about something.
And it's a very real concern. I mean during COVID
there was a a restaurant owner named Rick Savage who
(18:08):
was on Tucker Carlson Show. Actually the local media wasn't
interested in but Tucker was because he you know, openly said,
you know, these your your regulations about hanging you know,
plexiglass and wearing masks and social distancing and this is
all just stupid, Like my restaurant's going to be open.
And they they sent undercover agents into his bar on
(18:30):
multiple occasions and literally stalked him and took away his
liquor license, forced him to sell a business that was
making him four million dollars a year, and ran him
out of town. And now he's just over the border
in New Hampshire and he's got a new successful restaurant.
There's a doctor, doctor Meryl Nass, who was prescribing ivermectin
(18:50):
to her patients and you know, criticizing the middles administration.
She got hauled in front of the medical board and
has her medical license remote. So there's a lot of
fear and I think it's justified. But it also prevents
things that are bad and wrong from coming to the surface.
And you see that all over the United States. There's
(19:12):
people who are just hanging on to basically retire and
get their pension and then maybe they'll speak out, but
probably not. So. I think that across the board, the
problem is that people not necessarily lacking courage, but being
cowed into submission to tyrannical government dictates. And I mean
(19:36):
it was on display during COVID. You saw it. Yeah, absolutely,
very familiar. Yeah it was.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, no, it's you're absolutely right, and it was scary.
And I think the rewrite now that a lot of
these politicians are attempting, which is like, we didn't make
you do anything. You did it all because you wanted to.
It's a huge lie that needs constant exposure. But about fear,
I wanted to ask you, do you ever get afraid covering,
(20:03):
you know, kind of scary people who could do bad things.
I feel like, you know, I don't cover anything like that,
but even even the things I do cover. My mom
is like, do you have to criticize the president all
the time? Like can't you just say he's doing a
good job and that's it? Just go on TV and
say he's doing a good job, and I'm like, no,
I cannot, I cannot actually.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Do I'm afraid.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
But she's afraid of Like, you know, who knows what
will happen if you criticize the president. I mean, she's
from the Soviet Union. But do you do you feel
fear covering what you cover?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
For sure? For sure?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
That's okay. We like doggies.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
No, I mean, I definitely do. I mean, we've we've
upgraded our security and taken some precautions and conversations with
our local police chief about the nature of what we're doing.
You know, I think if you look at the you know,
if you do the math and you look at the
busts that have come about as a result of our
reporting and the operations that have been shuttered as a
(21:03):
result of our reporting, we've probably taken a two or
three hundred million dollar byte out of the Chinese criminal
organization with Tyson PRC. So yeah, I mean, I would
be kind of upset you took that kind of a
bite out of my business. Yeah, I would be a
little upset. We've also seen some evidence of cartel Mexican
(21:27):
cartels kind of working in cahoots with the Chinese mafia,
and there have been some low key, underreported or unreported
instances of cartels robbing the Chinese mafia when they know
there's a weak spot with some like elderly Chinese people
who just happened to be sitting on sixty five dollars
(21:48):
with no good explanation of where it came from. And
you know, I think that the Mexican cartels, it's pretty
well known that they take a they have a different
attitude towards violence than some other criminal organizations might. So yeah,
I mean it's it's scary, but I'm well armed, that's right. Good. Yeah,
I mean I'm well armed. We've got a security system,
(22:08):
you know, we we take all the precautions we can.
But at the same time, I'm not gonna you know,
live my life and fear while these these criminal these
anti social criminals, amoral criminals, exploit the people of the
main and like law enforcement isn't doing anything about it,
the government is not doing anything about it, right as politicians,
even though Republicans anything. So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna
(22:31):
go stand out in front of a mafia drug house
and jump up and down and until someone comes and
does something about it. You really understate I do, I do,
I love I love Mane a lot, and and you know,
it's it's sad to me to see what it's come to.
It's it's it's saddled with a corrupt government and some
of the highest government costs. I mean, we pay more
(22:53):
for our government and have a more corrupt government than
almost any state. I mean California. We might give California
our run church money.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
That's scary actually when you're when you're you know, second,
or when you start beating California, that's an issue.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
I mean, our legislature in this past section, both houses
controlled by Democrats. You know, in eighty percent of the
people who work in government or Democrats. The governor's a Democrat. Uh.
You know, we have this huge nonprofit industrial complex that's
all getting government money. They're like the fifth arm of
government here and all solidly left wing Democrat. So we
(23:31):
really have one party government. Even when Lapago was in office,
we essentially had one party government because anything he wanted
to do was just totally undermined and you know, he
was hamstrung at every every attempt. So we've had one
party rule for effectively three decades. Yeah, and what we're
dealing with now is the result oldest state in the Union,
(23:53):
the third highest taxes. Our schools are crap. Our schools
are so bad that they've had to change out the
testing systems so that you can't make apples to oranges
comparisons before and after the pandemic. So they've like ruined
our ability to measure the year over year progress going
back longer than two years, right, design, Yeah, it is,
(24:16):
it is. I mean, they figured out a long time
ago that you know, the best way to avoid the
disclosure of a embarrassing public record is to just not
create a public record. Ever, so that's what they do now.
You know, especially with immigration status. You know, they're not
going to ask for immigration status. And the best thing
that the those administration has come up with to try
and fix our problems is they're going to create the
(24:37):
Office of New Americans. But the goal of bringing seventy
five thousand new workers to the state of Maine, mostly migrants,
and we have right now. The last time I checked,
we had a little over three thousand units of housing
for sale.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
That's going to go well, yeah, all right, No one
has been able to answer my question right, Yeah, you know,
there it's very clear that their solution to the problem
is just unbridled open borders, immigration and more welfare.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And when you're already one of the tax stints in
the country, you know something has to give, you know,
something that I don't think that's going.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
To work just lunch, it's not It's not going to
work the way that they intended to. So you spend
your time writing about the state you love, defending the
state you love. Do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 4 (25:31):
Well?
Speaker 2 (25:32):
No, not really. I mean I think i've you know,
I've had some success professionally, but there are still plenty
of other things I want to do. You know, I'd
like to, you know, start a family. I'd like to,
you know, start a business or something like that. You know,
I still after, you know, a ten year career in media.
(25:54):
It's like, the only thing I really know how to
do is talk ship. You know, I don't know, you know,
how you.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Know, how to catch Chinese mafia. I feel like that
could be a business, you know, Steve's Chinese mafia catching business.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Now maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Hopefully hopefully the movie does well, but we're you know,
you know, I've thought about, you know, maybe going out
and taking of course and becoming an electrician or something
like that, learning some kind of practical skill.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I'd like to become a better fly fisherman. I mean,
you know, if I could, if I was a better
fly fisherman, and I could wire up someone's circuit breaker box,
and I had a bunch of kids running around, and
then maybe I feel like I had made it. But
for me, having made it was never really tied to
professional success or the amount of money you made. You know,
I've I guess the moment where I had made it
(26:49):
was in a we kind of bugged out of the
city like you did. My wife and I we were
living in Boston and during COVID, and in I think
early twenty twenty, we buy a camp or van and
grabbed their dog, Cancil, their lease and just drove around
the country for a year and a half, put thirty
five thousand miles on the van and just said that,
(27:10):
you know, lived and didn't really have jobs, just kind
of lived buff our savings. And then at that moment
I felt like I'd made it. Yeah that's a great life.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah, that's you know, that easily be step one in
you know, the vision of you know, learning electrician work
and being becoming a better fly fishermen and having a
bunch of kids. You know, step one might have been
getting yourself out of Boston and traveling the country.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, so I guess in the process, maybe I'm I'm
on step one. I don't know how many steps there
are on having it is only too you know, Yeah
it could be, but you know, yeah, I mean for me,
it's like I don't know much. How much money do
you need to make before you feel like you've made
it more? More and more of these days thanks to buy.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I love talking to you. You're super interesting and I
think that you just expose something that I don't think
a lot of people know about. And here with your
best tip for my listeners on how they can improve
their lives.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Oh geez, I don't know. I'm very skeptical to uh
to give the advice like that, get a dog, that's
my dogs my life, good helping help me exercise, to
get a dog, go to the gym. Read read Isaac Asimov,
(28:35):
good science fiction.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, these are all these are all very solid tips.
You know. I think you're you're better at advice giving
than you imagine. Thank you so much for coming on. Steve.
He is Steve Robinson the main Wire dot Com. Check
him out. His work is really fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Thank you, Steve, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Kara, thanks so much for listening to The Carol marco
Wich Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Karol Markowicz
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Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.