Brooklyn man sentenced in Maine for false mortgage and operating Canna grow house
Published 2026-10-01 · County Crime Watch
A Brooklyn man was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Bangor, Maine, after pleading guilty to submitting a false mortgage application and maintaining a property used to grow and distribute Canna, the U.S. Department of Justice says. U.S. District Judge Stacey D. Neumann sentenced Ken Yiu, 49, to time-served (one day) in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release; Yiu pleaded guilty on December 10, 2025.
Court records cited by the Department of Justice say Yiu obtained an $80,000 residential mortgage from a Maine bank after claiming he would occupy the Saint Albans property as his primary residence, although he never intended to live there. From September 2020 through January 2024 the property was used to grow and distribute Canna, and investigators say Yiu admitted in a December 2024 interview that he sold Canna grown at the property to buyers in Massachusetts.
Federal agents executed a search warrant at the Saint Albans property in January 2025 that investigators say confirmed the premises was used to grow and distribute Canna and that neither Yiu nor the property was licensed by the Maine Office of Canna Policy. The FBI, DEA, Homeland Security Investigations and IRS-Criminal Investigation led the probe under the Homeland Security Task Force initiative, with assistance from local Maine authorities.
The Department of Justice-provided record frames the case as part of the HSTF effort to target criminal networks and cross-border criminal activity.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice · Agency release: 2026-09-30. Original report by County Crime Watch.