Funding for this reporting was provided by The Pulitzer Center.

Read our entire Fields of Green investigation into Oklahoma’s medical marijuana black market

Yuduo Lu’s mind raced as he limped away from the marijuana farm, blood from the gunshot wound to his ankle trailing on the dirt road behind him. 

Lu had arrived at the remote farm near Maysville three weeks earlier in search of honest work and better pay. Instead, he found himself working long days in grueling conditions under the watch of the farm owner.  

Knowing he couldn’t stay, Lu asked to take his pay and leave. But the owner responded with a revolver.

“He aimed the gun at my head,” the 28-year-old told The Frontier through an interpreter. “I thought I was going to die.” As another woman at the farm screamed and grabbed the owner’s arm, he fired.

Lu narrowly got away, his ankle throbbing with pain as he staggered down the county road in the twilight. Thousands of miles away from his home in China, he thought of his parents, his old friends. He prayed for help, knowing his boss could catch up to him at any moment.

In the shadows

Lu’s story offers a glimpse into the extremes workers face in the darkest corners of Oklahoma’s billion-dollar marijuana underworld.

The Frontier verified much of his account with law enforcement officials and another worker at the farm, as well as court documents, medical records, public records, communications records, photos and videos. 

As The Frontier and ProPublica found in a joint investigation, Chinese criminal groups — some with alleged ties to the Chinese government — have exploited the state’s lax medical marijuana laws to dominate the national black market. To staff thousands of farms, the groups rely on scores of unwitting migrant workers — many of whom have no legal immigration status, no family in the U.S., and no one to report them missing if they disappear.

“They’re expendable,” said Mark Woodward, a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. “For every worker who escapes a grow, there are likely countless others who don’t make it out.”

In recent years, authorities in Oregon and California have discovered unmarked graves and decapitated bodies on abandoned illegal farms that sprung up after the states legalized recreational pot in the mid-2010s. Many of the same West Coast operators moved to Oklahoma after the state legalized medical use in 2018. 

Bosses in Oklahoma have beaten and sexually abused workers and held them captive in dangerous living conditions. However, because victims are often fearful of retaliation and refuse to testify in court, cases of suspected human trafficking are difficult to prosecute, state and federal officials say.

By speaking out, Lu said he hopes to raise awareness about the issue and compel those in power to address it.

“I never expected to encounter something so terrible in America,” he said.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested the farm owner, Liyi Wang, the day after the shooting. Wang, 57, is charged in Garvin County with assault and battery with a deadly weapon. He awaits a preliminary hearing and has yet to enter a plea. 

Steve Nash, an attorney representing Wang, declined to comment until after the preliminary hearing. Wang did not respond to requests for comment.

The farm owner told sheriff’s deputies he didn’t own a gun and denied shooting Lu, according to court records.

Early doubts

Lu grew up on his family’s wheat farm in the Hebei province in Northern China. Later, he moved to the city and worked in a factory. But he decided to leave the country last year after Chinese police raided the Christian church he attended and jailed him for a week, he said. 

Lu followed a common route to the U.S. for the tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants who have joined Oklahoma’s marijuana workforce in recent years. He said he flew to Hong Kong, then Ecuador, before making the week-long hike through the Darién Gap — the dangerous, roadless stretch of jungle that connects Central and South America. He then took buses and taxis towards northern Mexico, often being preyed upon by thieves and corrupt cops. 

After more than a month of travel, smugglers helped him cross into Southern California last December and he applied for political asylum, he said. 

Lu initially found work in a distribution center in Los Angeles. But in July, seeking a better paying job, he went to a Chinese-language employment agency that connected him to a marijuana farm in Oklahoma. The agency assured him the farm was properly licensed to grow medical cannabis. And it offered workers $4,000 per month, significantly more than Lu was making previously, he said. Lu needed the money to rebuild his life and support his elderly parents back in China, so he took the job. He bought a bus ticket to Oklahoma City and arrived on July 25. Wang was waiting for him at the bus station. 

At first, everything seemed alright, Lu said. During the 45-minute drive south, Wang explained the duties — planting seedlings, watering them on schedule, trimming leaves, managing light and ventilation, loading and unloading shipments.

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But it wasn’t long before Lu had second thoughts. He shared a room in a rundown trailer with Yanfa Chen, a 50-year-old worker from Tianjin, a port city in Northern China. Chen spoke with The Frontier through an interpreter and corroborated Lu’s account of working conditions on the farm. Wang made them get up at sunrise and work in the farm’s six growhouses late into the evening, the workers said.

Lu and Chen were the only two at the farm besides Wang and his girlfriend. The workload was overwhelming.

“They needed more employees for all the tasks,” Chen said, who had also recently arrived at the farm from Los Angeles.

As the days passed, what really alarmed Lu was Wang’s temper. Lu said Wang would smash objects around the farm when he got angry and once even fired his revolver at the ground when the dog misbehaved.

“I was scared of him,” Lu said. “At meal times, he would stare at us with a facial expression like he was going to eat us alive.”

Lu said he thought about sneaking off the farm, but Wang told him the neighbors had guns and wouldn’t treat him well if he went near their property. And he desperately needed the money.

Uneasy neighbors

Lu said Wang told him that he’d been in the U.S. for about a decade working in agriculture, though he wouldn’t say what kind. Public records show he lived in New Jersey and Flushing, a Chinese immigrant enclave in New York. 

As Oklahoma’s marijuana industry boomed in 2021, Wang joined a surge of out-of-state investors — many from Flushing — flocking to the state. He bought a remote 17 acre lot near Maysville and hired contractors to build greenhouses, according to public records and neighbors. 

Wang hired an Oklahoma attorney named Matt Stacy to get a medical marijuana license for the farm, documents show. Stacy was later indicted on federal conspiracy charges for allegedly helping criminal groups acquire marijuana licenses in Oklahoma using straw-owner schemes. He has pleaded not guilty. A lawyer for Stacy says he intends to “vigorously defend” himself in the case. The farm’s most recent license to grow medical marijuana expired in October 2023, records show.

From the start, neighbors were wary. Trucks with semi-trailers would come to the farm late at night, and Wang employed five or six workers who never seemed to leave the property, said Sue Wheeler, who lives in a house next door. 

As time went by, the neighbors’ worries only grew. Several large fires plagued the farm, they said. And they could sometimes hear violent yelling and gunfire.

“It’s happened three or four times,” Wheeler said. “You just wonder what, or who they’re shooting at.”

In the spring of 2023, Wang had a run-in with the law. He was arrested after allegedly breaking into another farm in Pottawatomie County. Police found him and another man who was visiting the United States on a tourist visa loading greenhouse parts into a pickup truck, according to court documents. Wang had a pair of bolt cutters and a pistol, according to court documents. Both men were charged with burglary and have pleaded not guilty.

No one will ever know

Lu had only been at the farm for 19 days when his worst fears came true. 

He and Chen were still busy planting seedlings one night after 7:00 p.m. when Wang stormed into the greenhouse and began yelling, according to the workers. Wang accused Lu of failing to water the plants.

The farm owner shoved Lu, and Lu pushed back. Wang then hit Lu in the chest with a shovel, the workers said. Lu fell hard into the dirt, breathless and in pain. Chen restrained the owner, who continued shouting and waving the shovel as Lu got to his feet and staggered away, the two workers said. 

Lu barricaded himself in his living quarters and laid in bed, waiting out the pain and wrestling over what to do next. He felt a mix of defeat and regret about staying at the farm. And, as time passed, his anger grew.

Lu said he went to the owner’s office about an hour later and told him he intended to leave and wanted his pay. Wang became angry again and said that he could only pay Lu $1,500 of the $2,500 he was owed because of his poor performance, according to Lu’s account and court documents. 

“I asked why, if my work was unsatisfactory, he didn’t say anything earlier and waited to deduct my wages. This was unreasonable,” Lu said. 

Wang then pulled out a pocket knife, backed him into a corner, and held it to his face, Lu said.

“I can kill you in this remote place and no one will ever know,” Lu said Wang told him. 

Lu begged for his life, telling Wang he no longer wanted the money. Wang slapped him and left, he said. Lu later recounted these details to state investigators, he and a law enforcement official said.

Lu said he picked up a wooden stick for protection and returned to his room. 

A few minutes later, Lu stepped into the hall. He saw Wang and his girlfriend. Wang used his cellphone to take a picture of him holding the stick and muttered, “This is all I need.”

The owner then got his revolver and, amid a rush of screams and commotion, shot Lu, according to Lu and court documents. 

“I could feel the bullet go through my ankle,” Lu said. “I screamed in pain.”

Lu managed to take refuge in a room. With the door blocked, he listened for any sign of Wang or his girlfriend, he said. When he thought it was safe, he used his remaining strength to limp away. Each step was excruciating, he said, but he had no other choice. 

“I looked back constantly to see if they were behind me,” Lu said. “I cannot imagine what he would have done if he saw me.”

Speaking through a police translator, Wang later told sheriff’s deputies he had gotten into a dispute over money with Lu, who he said threatened him with a rod and left.

Saved

David Hines lives with his family about a quarter mile from the farm down a dirt and gravel road.

At around 8:15 p.m., Hines said he was working in his woodshop when his beagle began barking relentlessly. He came out to see Lu hobbling down the road.

“I could tell he was limping and he had his hands raised in the air, like ‘I surrender,’” said Hines. “I knew immediately he was from the marijuana farm.”

Using a translation app, Hines asked whether he needed help. Lu nodded as he typed into his phone and pointed to his leg. 

“My boss shot me,” Lu typed. 

Hines helped Lu into his pickup truck and they took off for the nearest hospital as Hines called the sheriff. Lu broke down crying in the truck, overcome by his situation.

“I felt like I had just been saved,” he said.

Garvin County sheriff’s deputies got the call around 8:25 p.m. and sped to the farm. Garvin County Captain Doug Walling read Wang his Miranda Rights and he agreed to answer questions, court documents say. 

Wang was “loud and boisterous” during the interview, Walling told The Frontier. “He acted surprised at what we were asking.” 

Walling said Wang’s version of events changed several times.

A search of the trailer turned up bloody cotton balls that Lu had used on his wound, however deputies were unable to locate any guns on the large, overgrown property, according to court records.

Meanwhile, staff at Purcell Regional Hospital examined and treated Lu’s wound and arranged for him to be transported to Oklahoma City for surgery to remove bullet fragments and repair fractured bones, according to Lu, medical records, and court documents. 

Deputies arrested Wang the next day.

Lu said he got a call from Wang’s girlfriend when he was still in the hospital. She warned him not to speak about what had happened, claiming she had “lots of connections” and could get him sent back to China, Lu said. 

Wang posted bond two days later and went back to the farm. 

Hours later, authorities received another emergency call from the property. This time Chen had asked to take his pay and leave. Wang initially refused to give Chen his money, but paid him after deputies came and kept the peace, Chen and Walling said. 

“It was not easy for him to pay me,” said Chen, who moved back to Los Angeles. “He really did not want to.”

Today, Lu is staying at a homeless shelter in Oklahoma City. His ankle is healing slowly. Even though he’s unable to work and doesn’t know what the future holds, he acknowledges it all could have been a lot worse.

“I’m thankful to be alive,” he said.