Phila. man facing life in prison after marijuana-growing business goes up in smoke

No one likes paying the utility bill, but one criminal probably wishes he had.

A multistate marijuana-growing business was exposed because one operation went up in flames, with the fire caused by pirated electricity through faulty wiring, according to prosecutors.

Anthony Bui, 57, of Philadelphia, the alleged owner of a string of marijuana-growing facilities stretching from Connecticut to Florida, pleaded guilty Wednesday to numerous drug and money-laundering counts.

According to prosecutors, Bui ran lucrative operations out of houses in New Britain, Conn.; Birdsboro, Pa.; Staley, N.C.; and Jacksonville, Fla. He also imported hundreds of pounds of Canadian marijuana, hidden in tractor-trailers, that he distributed along the Eastern seaboard. He plowed his profits into his commercial fishing company in Egg Harbor, N.J., to disguise the source of the money, prosecutors said.

But his empire went up in smoke when a former chicken house, which Bui was converting into a massive growing operation, caught fire in North Carolina in June 2005. As a small blaze burned just outside the house, volunteer firefighters detected a "strange smell." The assistant fire chief opened the door to the oversize coop and discovered the high-tech operation inside. Investigators later determined that the fire had been sparked because the growers were pirating electricity. The wires had been poorly rigged to bypass the electric meter, prosecutors said.

The local power company estimated that the North Carolina operation had stolen $2,261 in electricity from May 20 to June 30, 2005, according to court documents.

DEA agents soon discovered the three other facilities. According to court documents, Bui set up the operation in Connecticut for his son and the son's friend. In Birdsboro, southeast of Reading, marijuana was cultivated in every room of a house and the site could produce 25 pounds of marijuana every few weeks that sold for $2,500 a pound, said U.S. Attorney Zane D. Memeger.

More than a dozen members of Bui's organization have been prosecuted, Memeger said.

Bui pleaded guilty to conspiracy to manufacture more than 1,000 marijuana plants, conspiracy to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. He will face a maximum of life in prison with a mandatory minimum of 10 years when he is sentenced on Jan. 11, 2011.