Oklahoma Continues Shutting Down Marijuana Growing Operations

Local and federal law enforcement officials shut down an incorrectly registered marijuana growing site in Wilson, Oklahoma, on Oct. 20, seizing 15,000 plants and hundreds of pounds of the drug.

The raid on Purple Light LLC is just one in a series in the state, where the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics (OBN) is closing down marijuana growing operations at a rate of two or three per week.

The operation included officers from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and several illegal immigrants were taken into custody.

According to Oklahoma business records, the owner of the company is Chen Ri Fei.

Law enforcement officers found illegal Chinese pesticides on site, which were used on the marijuana plants. Agents also found body armor at the facility.

The state is investigating whether operations are selling the marijuana they grow on the black market, or have dodged the state residency requirement by recruiting a local “straw owner.”

On Oct. 16, the OBN raided grower BNL Frontier Sharon-Mutual and found 8,777 marijuana plants. The investigation into BNL is continuing.

Two days earlier, agents also seized more than 18,585 marijuana plants during a raid on Wyatt’s Green, which was operating without a license.

ICE, which was involved in the raid, took 10 people into custody, and OBN expects to make more arrests.

The narcotics bureau says Wyatt’s Green used an illegal “straw ownership.” The business is registered to Yawu Huang.

OBN set up a special task force to address the rise of organized crime in Oklahoma, which it says has set up growing operations in the state.  

On Sept. 18, Oklahoma narcotics officials told Congress that in 2024–2025, marijuana worth $153 billion was known to have been grown in the state.

They added that sales of medical marijuana cannot account for all of the drug grown.

The director of the OBN, Donnie Anderson, told Congress that it is likely to leave Oklahoma for the black market in other states.

Oklahoma approved medical marijuana in 2018, licensing its cultivation and sale within its borders.

The state established no cap on the number of farms that could be licensed to grow marijuana and no limit on how many marijuana plants each farm could cultivate.

It then reported an explosive growth of marijuana growers.

As many as 85 percent of licensed grow sites have connections with Chinese owners or operators, according to Mark Woodward, information officer with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.