For several years, foreign nationals have been buying up farmland in Oklahoma, and some are now allegedly working with criminal organizations to operate illegal ventures within America.
U.S. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) has introduced legislation to monitor foreign investments of American land that may threaten the nation's security.
"Every region of Oklahoma is concerned about foreign nationals buying up farmland," Lankford said in a press release from his office. "Our loose oversight has allowed transnational criminal organizations to partner with Chinese nationals to buy land and businesses throughout Oklahoma. This is a national security issue and a human rights issue. We need to know who is buying our land, how they are using it and if any criminal activity is occurring."
In 2021, the Oklahoma State Attorney General's Office stated that they were seeing an increase in the numbers of foreign nationals who were buying agricultural land and using cutouts and front companies in order to evade an Oklahoma state law that requires medical marijuana farms to have a 75% local ownership to participate in the program, a report from The Oklahoman said. That same year, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control arrested 11 people, the majority of whom were from China, for their unlawful involvement in a marijuana farming site.
The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics (OBN) reported more than 7,000 licensed marijuana growers in the state, and they believe that 2,000 of those farms have a Chinese connection, Lankford said in his release. The OBN noted that the growing marijuana market has also brought to the state an increased number of other serious crimes such as human trafficking, forced labor and money laundering.
"Chinese organized crime taking over rural Oklahoma, buying thousands of acres of land and turning them into illegal marijuana farms with links to sex and labor trafficking, prostitution rings and homicides - The Reality Of Legal Medical Marijuana," News Nation correspondent Jorge Ventura said in a May 3 Twitter post.
In order to provide oversight and transparency of purchases of U.S. agricultural land that could potentially threaten national security, Lankford has introduced a bipartisan bill titled the Security and Oversight of International Landholdings (SOIL) Act. The bill seeks to increase oversight of foreign direct investment in agricultural land in the United States and oversight of other foreign investment land holdings as well. The senator noted that the bill is in response to concerns from Oklahomans about the multiple recent purchases of Oklahoma agricultural land by foreign entities.
