Buena Farmhouses Hid 4,350 Plants From Legal Shops

New Jersey State Police and local officers pulled 4,350 marijuana plants from three Buena farmhouses on September 16, 2024. Hanzi Chen, 47, Suxia Li, 41, and Deng Huan Hong, 50, lived in those houses and held no cannabis licenses. Each was charged with first-degree possession with intent to distribute and first-degree production-facility counts.

The houses sat on Forst Grove Road in a borough of 4,500 people near Vineland. A judge later said Brooklyn limited-liability companies with no legitimate business had bought the three related properties. Two years after the raid, the occupants still have no public plea or sentence, and the companies were never named in the charging statement.

4,350 Plants Inside Three Buena Farmhouses

The New Jersey State Police Marijuana Eradication Team South ran a three-month probe with Franklinville police and Elk Township police, then served three residential search warrants on September 16, 2024. Officers found the houses converted into grow rooms, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office said from Mays Landing. Assistant Prosecutor Deirdre Laws put the plant count at 4,350. Prosecutors called the retail value multi-million-dollar and did not publish a dollar figure.

None of the properties was a licensed medical or adult-use cannabis business. All three defendants were found living where the plants were growing. The Gangs, Guns and Narcotics Unit took the case. The charging statement says the accusations are not proof of guilt, and each defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted.

WHAT OFFICERS SAID THEY FOUND

• Grow lights: Specialized lighting had been installed through the converted rooms.
• Climate gear: Heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning were running as a production setup, not a normal house system.
• Feed and water: Growth nutrients and a dedicated water supply were on site with the grow space.

A neighbor who asked not to be named said the smell had already raised suspicions, and that police stayed for hours. “This used to be a farm so those buildings back there were perfect for this kind of scenario,” the neighbor said. Buena’s old farm layout, with outbuildings behind the houses, is what made the conversion cheap to hide in a small borough.

Brooklyn Shell Companies Bought the Farm Properties

At the detention hearing on September 25, 2024, Judge Jeffrey Wilson said the three related properties had been purchased by LLCs that were not tied to any legitimate business. He said those companies listed addresses in Brooklyn, New York. The prosecutor’s charging statement names the three occupants and does not name the LLCs, the managers, or the money that closed the sales.

That split is the working design of a house grow. Someone buys the building through a company that has no shop, no cultivation license, and no public face in town. Someone else lives inside and tends the rooms. Police can raid the address and hold the people they find. The paper owners stay a filing in another city unless investigators pierce the companies.

Officials said Chen, Li, and Hong are citizens of China. A Cantonese interpreter assisted in court. Wilson treated that mix, foreign citizenship, shell buyers, and a factory inside a tiny borough, as a flight problem, not a local gardening case.

Held as Flight Risks After the First Hearing

All three appeared the same day, one at a time. Wilson ordered them held at the Atlantic County Justice Facility. He said they were a flight risk and described the operation as orchestrated and built out. A defense lawyer for one defendant told the court his client was a lower-level worker who tended plants on a superior’s orders.

Such illicit enterprises here in the state of New Jersey clearly present not a threat to any specific victim, but to our community at large.

Jeffrey Wilson, Atlantic County Superior Court judge, detention hearing

Wilson’s community-at-large line is the closest the public record comes to saying who pays. Licensed shops in the county sell tested flower and remit tax. A house factory sells neither testing nor tax, and the neighbors get the odor, the power load, and the raid. The “superior” the defense pointed to was not named in the hearing coverage, and the Brooklyn companies were not charged in the statement that named Chen, Li, and Hong.

New Jersey Makes Unlicensed Growing a First-Degree Crime

Adult-use sales started in April 2022 under the 2021 CREAMM Act. Private growing stayed illegal for patients and for adults 21 and over. A legal buyer may hold up to six ounces from a licensed shop. Growing a plant at home is still charged as manufacture of a controlled substance, graded by plant count, with no personal-use exception.

N.J.S.A. 2C:35-4 goes further. Anyone who knowingly maintains a premises used to manufacture marijuana in an amount greater than five pounds or ten plants commits a crime of the first degree. A first-degree term runs 10 to 20 years. The statute requires a parole bar of one-third to one-half of the sentence, and it allows a fine up to $750,000 or five times street value, whichever is greater. Fifty or more plants also make cultivation itself a first-degree crime under the manufacturing statute, with a fine up to $300,000.

UNLICENSED GROWING PENALTIES BY PLANT COUNT

The Buena houses, at 4,350 plants, sat far above every line in that table. The felony ladder was written to keep ordinary people out of the plant business and to push supply into licensed rooms. It also gives prosecutors first-degree counts when they walk into a converted farmhouse. Bills such as S2564 and S1758 have sought a narrow home-garden path and had not become law by September 2026.

Why House Factories Still Beat Licensed Shops

The legal market is not a rumor. The Cannabis Regulatory Commission’s 2024 annual report put adult-use sales above $1 billion and counted $61 million in 2024 cannabis taxes, with a precise haul of $61,019,060. That report listed 46 licensed cultivators among adult-use operators. By December 17, 2025, the commission counted 397 licensed businesses. More than 270 medical and adult-use dispensaries were open across all 21 counties, in 211 municipalities.

LICENSED NEW JERSEY MARKET FIGURES

• 2024 adult-use sales: More than $1 billion, per the commission’s annual report.
• 2024 state tax: $61,019,060, with nearly 10,000 industry workers counted in the same report.
• Later four-quarter sales: Combined medical and adult-use combined sales topped $1.16 billion, up 12.3 percent from the third quarter of 2024 to the third quarter of 2025.
• Flower prices: Adult-use sales rose 19.88 percent from October 2024 to October 2025 while average flower prices fell as more supply came online.

The same 2025 review warned that unlicensed operators still try to cash in, and that unregulated products skip the safety testing, labeling, and age checks the licensed shops must run. A house with lights, HVAC, and 4,350 plants can throw off product without a lab, a tax stamp, or a town that voted in cannabis retail. Most of New Jersey’s 564 municipalities still keep licensed shops out. Farm boroughs with old outbuildings sit in that gap. The felony rule blocks a patient from putting one plant in a closet. It has not made a Brooklyn LLC pay retail rent, and it has not made a converted farmhouse show up on the commission’s license list.

Another Indoor Farm Turned Up in Buena Vista

The Forst Grove Road raid did not end the house-factory pattern in Atlantic County. On January 30, 2025, officers searched 147 Fursin Avenue in Buena Vista Township, the next town over, and seized 728 marijuana plants. Hui Chen, 49, a citizen of China, pleaded guilty on March 31, 2026, to first-degree maintaining a controlled dangerous substance production facility and second-degree conspiracy to distribute. Prosecutors said they would recommend six years in state prison at a sentencing date set for May 11, 2026, before Judge Donna M. Taylor. That case is separate from Chen, Li, and Hong. It is the same method: a house, a full indoor room, and a first-degree production count.

FROM LEGALIZATION TO THE BUENA RAIDS

1. 2021: The CREAMM Act legalizes adult-use cannabis and leaves home growing a crime.
2. April 2022: Licensed adult-use sales begin.
3. June to September 2024: The Marijuana Eradication Team South investigates the Forst Grove Road houses.
4. September 16, 2024: Officers serve three warrants and seize 4,350 plants.
5. September 25, 2024: Wilson orders Chen, Li, and Hong held as flight risks.
6. January 30, 2025: A search at 147 Fursin Avenue in Buena Vista yields 728 plants.
7. March 31, 2026: Hui Chen pleads guilty in the Buena Vista case.

The later plea shows how these files move when they move: a production-facility count, a recommended term in years, and a defendant who was living in the grow house. It does not show a public ending for the larger Forst Grove Road file.

The Occupants Named, the Boss Still Unnamed

Chen, Li, and Hong were the people in the doorways. The charging statement, the plant count, the Brooklyn LLC finding, and the “superior” mentioned by defense counsel all point past them. Who signed for the companies, who paid for the lights and HVAC, and where the flower was meant to go are not answered in the 2024 statement. No later notice from the prosecutor’s office, in the public releases that followed other Atlantic County grow pleas, names a verdict for those three.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The seizure: Officers took 4,350 plants from three Forst Grove Road houses on September 16, 2024.
• The charges: Each occupant faces two first-degree counts and was ordered held on September 25, 2024.
• The buyers: Wilson said Brooklyn LLCs with no legitimate business purchased the related properties.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The companies: The LLC names, managers, and funding trail have not been published in the charging statement.
• The superior: The person a defense lawyer said directed the plant work has not been identified in court coverage.
• The case end: No public plea or sentence has been announced for Hanzi Chen, Suxia Li, or Deng Huan Hong.

Licensed New Jersey shops now ring up more than a billion dollars a year in taxed, tested cannabis. The Buena houses show the other supply line that still fits in a farm borough: buy the building through a company in Brooklyn, fill the rooms, and leave the occupants to face first-degree counts when the warrants come.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on publicly described charges, court hearings, and state cannabis rules, and it is for information only. It is not legal advice, a prediction of any verdict, or a guide to growing, selling, or possessing cannabis. Readers with questions about charges, licenses, or New Jersey cultivation law should consult a licensed New Jersey attorney before acting. Figures, case statuses, and license counts reflect the prosecutor statement, hearing record, statutes, and Cannabis Regulatory Commission reports cited here and can change as cases move and the commission posts new totals.