Asian transnational criminal organizations operate more than 270 illegal marijuana cultivation sites in Maine, according to a leaked U.S. Department of Homeland Security memo.
An investigation by the Maine Wire has identified more than 100 of those sites, as previously reported here.
Of those properties — almost all purchased within the last three years by single Chinese adults from New York or Massachusetts — 69 of the property transactions involved mortgages originated by Quontic Bank, according to a review of real estate records.
TRIAD WEED
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Quontic Bank, based in Astoria, N.Y., describes itself as an “adaptive digital bank.”
It was created after real estate investor Steve Schnall purchased a distressed bank in 2009 and rebranded it two years later as Quontic.
All told, Quontic financed nearly $15 million worth of residential mortgages for homes in rural Maine after 2020, despite having done few mortgages in the state prior to the legalization of recreational cannabis in Maine in 2020.
Quontic is a community development financial institution or CDFI.
The federal government created the CDFI designation in 1994 as part of the Riegle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act.
The goal of the program was to encourage banks to offer financial services to underserved communities, including immigrant communities.
There are more than 1,000 CDFIs currently operating in the U.S., and several in Maine.
According to Quontic’s website, they offer specialized financial products that help foreign nationals buy up properties in the U.S.
Some CDFIs receive taxpayer funding through the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund in order to support their lending.
The Quontic loan officers listed on the majority of the Quontic loans for Maine properties were Steven Ho and Ying-Chan Weng.
Weng is a Chinese national who attended Zhejiang University, according to her company profile.
Reached by phone, Weng expressed shock that the loans she processed were connected to illicit marijuana growing operations in rural Maine.
Weng said the large number of Quontic-financed mortgages in Maine could be because Quontic is the only CDFI that finances real estate in Maine.
“Not that many banks have this type of program in that state, so they know we’re the only one that does this type of loan,” Weng said.
“I have to tell my bank,” said Weng. “We have to stop doing it.”
Weng originated the mortgages for more than two dozen properties on behalf of Chinese buyers from New York and Massachusetts, including a property in Fairfield that is an obvious marijuana growing operation.
Ho, who is no longer with Quontic, is originally from Taiwan, according to his company profile, which is still hosted on Quontic’s website.
Attempts to contact Ho for this story were unsuccessful.
Beginning in Feb. 2021, Ho originated the mortgages for dozens of properties in Maine.
Those properties include a house in Thorndike, which a former Waldo County Sheriff confirmed has been under investigation as a suspected illegal marijuana growing operation.
A resident of Thorndike who visited the property recently also confirmed the strong odor of marijuana emanating from the house.
Ho also originated the loan for a house in Winterport, which later caught fire because the marijuana growing operation that sprang up in the home was using too much electricity.
A property in Rumford that has boarded up windows, smells strongly of marijuana, and is under investigation by the Rumford Police Department was also purchased using a Quontic mortgage processed by Ho.
In 2021, a mortgage industry trade publication featured Ho in an article headlined, “Top Originator: From a novice to a non-QM pro“, that touted his meteoric rise in the mortgage industry.
There is no evidence that Weng, Ho, or anyone at Quontic knew at the time the loans were made that the houses would become illicit cannabis grows.
Nor is there any proof that the individuals named in the mortgage documents participated in illicit marijuana cultivation.
Multiple interview requests placed via email and phone with Quontic were not returned.
Quontic’s website touts the firm’s ability to secure financing for non-citizens who are present in the U.S. but are unable to obtain a Social Security Number (SSN).
“Whether you’re a foreign national interested in purchasing an investment property in the US or you currently live and work in the US but are not eligible to get a social security number, we may have a mortgage option that’s right for you,” the website states.
Quontic received its CDFI status in 2015.
“While most banks prefer to lend to the wealthy, our mission is to lend to low-income people and in low-income communities, so we do whatever we need to do to make sure that at least 60-70% of the loans we make are to these target markets,” then-Quontic CEO Schnall told The Top 100 Magazine.
According to that profile, Quontic has experienced “virtually no losses” on its residential mortgage program.
“Also, as a CDFI, we’re exempt from the regulation that requires us to underwrite income documentation the traditional way, so we can exercise a lot more flexibility when issuing loans. In short, we can adapt to the borrower’s unique circumstances and view their application in totality, rather than just by calculating a debt-to-income ratio from their tax returns,” Schnall said.
Schnall died in August 2022 in a motorcycle accident.
George Lazaridis, interim CEO and longtime president of Quontic’s mortgage division, did not respond to a request for an interview.
CDFI would’ve made the Mafia’s job much easier and lucrative than traditional extortion.
All of these “legal” programs to help non-citizens while the citizens of this country have to pay for it, just makes the brain feel like it is going to blow up! Just too much bowing and giving to the illegals and, frankly the “poor” is killing the rest of us! It is time to rid this state AND country of progressivism and get back to individualism where we are each responsible for ourselves and our own families. When we are responsible for ourselves, THEN we will fight for what is ours, such as this country!
Great reporting.
The loan officer was (shocked that there’s gambling going on in Rick’s American Cafe)!
I guess doing your Due Diligence isn’t taught at the CCP foreign infiltration classes?
I don’t get it? There are laws defining limits on home growing, investigate and prosecute just like you do to American citizens then seize the property in drug forfeiture. It wont take long before the bank gets their shit together once they start losing money. Meanwhile, give the homes to the homeless vets. Easy fix if they wanted to, which apparently they don’t for some reason.
I love that their website isn’t even finished. It still has the Latin (I think) place holder text all over the place that comes with website templates.
Let’s get this right: New York banks were trying to starve legal firearms-related businesses of cash, but supplied boatloads for illegal weed growing operations. What’s wrong with this picture?
In my daily work I deal with licensed marijuana businesses from time to time. Therefore I have become familiar with the smell of marijuana being processed. I go for early morning bike rides where I get that smell over and over again riding by the same houses. I never gave it much thought, just assuming it was for home use, until I heard you on WVOM this morning.
On another subject, have you ever looked into kratom? https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/kratom/art-20402171
We have a business in the neighborhood selling a truck/trunk load every day. I believe the FDA stops it at the border, if they find it. It is shipped daily through the US Postal Service for online buyers.
Thank you for all you do. I subscribe and read as often as I can.
Quontic Bank was founded by a Jew, Steve Schnall. He died in 2022.
https://gab.com/ryanmurdough/posts/111420488154891905
Xi is no dummy vs, Janet Mills is?
They have been using the City of Augusta’s Landfill at Hatch Hill to dump all of their illegal grow by-products which are all toxic waste. When city employees mention it to the Director of Public Works they get harassed for being too through and questioning the loads coming in. The Director says, If they have legal stickers because they show proof of ownership, let them in. The one Chinese man who speaks English, comes in before the loads come trucked in with various vehicles with registrations from outside of Augusta, he stands outside the shack and waves them all in…They are illegals who have no paperwork, speak no English, are dirty, filthy and avoid eye contact. Not one report has been made to the City Police, who’s chief is in City Hall acting as City Manager, because what isn’t said, doesn’t happen in Augusta, Maine. Down the street from City Hall are multiple agencies that don’t care the Chinese are growing illegally, laugh at those who point out that on Water Street, a known criminal receives the shipments of illegal weed, meth and crack at his restaurant(?) Do they really serve food? The crew stays in the building all night long after closing. The owners are famous for drug trafficking, arson, entrapment of workers, insurance fraud…you know upstanding business people. Every night two white vans from NYC come in the Commercial Street lot behind their restaurant and unload supplies for packaging and handling drugs, they then get loaded (freighted vans) or over loaded and drive off every day back to the turnpike…and the owners leave after usually at 5 am.
The volume of Chinese people entering and filling the landfill with toxic waste makes those critics of Hatch Hill wonder, why the RICO sweet deal a local hauler has had for years making millions on the backs of the Augusta, Maine residents wasn’t enough to have a federal investigation of the landfill theformer Mayor allowing his bff to profit illegally. Now this!
Maine has always been a paradise for those who use the lack of communication as a weapon against people trying to point out the truth. Bless you for reporting this and other crap we see and can’t get anyone to do anything about, and then there’s the subtile Death Threats and like the bank dude deadly consequences.
If these properties are involved in a drug crime, can’t the state seize the properties? If Quontic loses enough properties they may have to shut down their operations.
It’s pretty obvious who’s involved , and how power gets hooked up illegally , it’s the big guy gang again ! Most of his crime syndicate partners are Maine officials , theives , domestic terrorism, everything bad that happens in Maine Gov Mills and her sister n brothers are directs, organizers of . Think about that and the conflict of interest in all this .someone shuts off power extra long ,so declared federal emergency funds from Biden , and who is director of CMP ??? Guess who ? Not to hard to figure out , inducing people intentionally at hospitals, to receive pharma settlements n declared emergency federal funds for WHO adverse reaction federal national critical public health emergency level 7 , then kidnap through DHS adult or child protective so as wards of state they can steal.all the victims millions ( wards) each. And guess who is director, and chief organizers Maine hospitals two of Mills relatives sister n brother , and more declared emergency funds to split with Biden’s ! It’s the most evil ,twisted sick F’s I ever heard of cruel unusual punishment , depraved minds , the thieves can’t get any thicker and the corruption can’t get any deeper !!!!! Justice for Abraham and hundreds others who did not make it !