A federal grand jury has charged two men with narcotics conspiracy and four other drug charges, according to court records filed with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of New York.
The defendants, Steven Zheng and Stanley Lee, are accused of conspiring together and with others to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, 100 kilograms or more of a mixture and substance containing marijuana beginning in or before September 2020 and continuing to about March 8, 2021.
Lee was previously identified in a December 2021 Buffalo News story as a former University at Buffalo student from whom federal agents seized almost $467,000 in a raid at his Amherst apartment on Deer Lakes Drive in early March 2021.
At the time, according to federal court records, it was the third-largest cash forfeiture case in Western New York by federal authorities in at least two years.
Though no arrests had been made nor charges filed many months after after the seizure, two sources with direct knowledge of the case told The News in December that the cash seizure was part of an ongoing investigation into marijuana trafficking near the UB Amherst campus and elsewhere in Amherst.
According to the indictment filed against Lee and Zheng Saturday by the grand jury, in addition to narcotics conspiracy, they each were charged with possession of 50 kilograms or more of marijuana with intent to distribute, and three counts each of maintaining drug-involved premises at 1300 Sweet Home Road, 4212 Deer Lakes Drive and 14 Rosemont Drive, all in Amherst.
In addition to the nearly $467,000 that was seized by federal agents from Lee in the March 2021 raid, law enforcement also confiscated $23,985 cash on or about Dec. 23, 2020, from Zheng during a traffic stop, and $12,100 cash during the execution of a search warrant at the Deer Lakes Drive address in March 2021, according to the indictment. During the March raid, agents also seized a 2016 Toyota RAV4 and 2016 Lexus NX2.
