A “primary distributor” for a California-to-Florida pot ring has admitted conspiring to distribute more than a ton of marijuana through carriers that federal prosecutors said delivered weekly in Jacksonville.
“According to witness statements, it was normal for customers in the Jacksonville area to purchase over 200 pounds of marihuana[sic] per week,” read a plea agreement that Jack Anntsai Chang, 67, signed September 15.
Chang faces 10 years to life in prison under the agreement, although his attorney said a reclassification of pot from a Schedule I drug to Schedule III that President Donald Trump ordered in December 2025 might help lower his sentence.
Chang's plea admitted working with the group, run by an unnamed "Person A," to handle 1,000 kilograms,
or 2,200 pounds, of pot over two years starting in 2023.
A summary in the agreement recounted authorities seizing about $925,000 and about 725 pounds of pot from pot ring members during a series of busts before the eight-person indictment was returned in November 2025.
The summary, called a “Factual Basis,” said the group “operated methodically with drug deliveries arriving almost every Sunday via semi-truck into the Jacksonville and Orlando areas.”
Chang, a Californian who immigrated from Taiwan in 2000 and became a U.S. citizen, was responsible for receiving shipments at a warehouse and overseeing their distribution, according to court records.
Bulk loads of pot were kept at warehouses or storage facilities, then moved into cargo vans or minivans to distribute in Jacksonville, Tallahassee and Orlando, the agreement said.
Vacuum-sealed bags of pot were put into cardboard boxes usually marked with images of Dixie cups or Dutch ovens, the agreement said.
The plea said investigators monitored ring members for more than a year before the indictment, describing a day in September 2024 when agents watched Chang working throughout the day around the pot warehouse.
“The defendant was again observed making multiple trips to the warehouse and loading boxes into vans. When he departed and later returned to the warehouse, the van would be empty and he would load additional boxes into the van,” said the summary, describing Chang working with three other men. “… The four loaded a total of 57 cardboard boxes into four different vans. Based on DEA’s investigation … agents estimated that each box carried, conservatively, approximately 25 pounds of marihuana. In total, agents estimate there were at least 1,425 pounds, or 646 kilograms, of marihuana in the boxes.”
Two of the men agents described as working with Chang that day, Fan Liu and Henglie Zhou, each pleaded guilty earlier in 2026 to conspiring to distribute 100 kilograms of pot, which carries a lesser mandatory sentence.
Zhou was sentenced in July to five years in prison. Liu is still awaiting sentencing.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: 'Distributor' moving truckloads of illegal Jacksonville pot faces prison
