CCP Intel-Associated Official Converted Taxpayer-Funded Facility By US Military Bases Into Massive Illegal Weed Grow
A Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence official is the head of a U.S. taxpayer-funded facility in the Mojave Desert where authorities dismantled a massive illegal marijuana operation, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered.
Police seized over 15,000 marijuana plants and arrested 14 people — including eight Chinese nationals — while conducting a July 2022 raid on a 75-acre Barstow, California facility owned by China-based quartz slab manufacturer American Quartz Inc. (AQ), which secured a multimillion-dollar Sunshine State grant earlier that year with support from Treasurer Fiona Ma and remains operational, according to the criminal complaint and state records.
Barstow’s former mayor Paul Anthony Courtney and a dozen other individuals were charged with felony counts of illegal marijuana cultivation and tax evasion in July 2025 related to the illicit operation, which allegedly may also have involved “violence,” “cruelty,” and witness intimidation, according to the criminal complaint. The charges against Courtney, who served as Barstow mayor until 2024, were ultimately dismissed in March 2026, when he agreed to plead no contest to a newly added “Fighting, Noise, Offensive Words” infraction, court records show.
Bench warrants have been issued for the arrests of the eight Chinese defendants, who have not appeared in court, and the other defendants pleaded not guilty in their ongoing cases.
While it is unclear if any of the defendants ever worked for AQ, Chinese government documents translated by the DCNF reveal that the company’s CEO, “Tommy” Hu Qiaomin — who was not charged — has extensive CCP state security ties and has held numerous positions within arms of one of the communist nation’s influence and intelligence agencies, including current membership in several such entities.
AQ, Hu, Ma and Courtney did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Hu’s ties to the CCP raise serious national security concerns in light of AQ reportedly continuing to operate as a “landlord” for cannabis cultivators post-raid, the Chinese company’s efforts to influence U.S. lawmakers and AQ’s proximity to sensitive U.S. government sites, including Edwards Air Force Base to the west, Fort Irwin to the north and Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow approximately 6 miles east.
“AQ operated as more than a commercial landlord; it gave a CCP-linked actor facility control inside a sensitive logistics corridor,” Ammon Blair, senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, told the DCNF. “The facility matters as much, if not more, than the marijuana.”
“AQ sits near the Barstow International Gateway (BIG), which links the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the Alameda Corridor, BNSF Railway, warehousing, transloading, and national freight movement,” said Blair, who is a former Border Patrol agent and Army veteran. “It also sits near Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, which supports military logistics and operational readiness. That geography gives a hostile or criminal network practical value through staging, warehousing, workforce placement, cash movement, surveillance, local influence and commercial cover.
‘For The Motherland’
Hu has held Chinese military, government and intel arm positions in both the U.S. and China, according to DCNF translations of Chinese government reports.
Born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang in 1955, Hu served in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) until 1980, when he began working for the state-run Wenzhou Foreign Trade Company, according to DCNF translations of Chinese government and state media reports. After building a shoe manufacturing company in Africa in the 1990s, Hu expanded his business to the U.S. in 2003.
https://dailycaller.com/2026/07/20/ccp-intel-associated-official-illegal-weed-near-grow-military-bases/