In a letter sent to Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin this week, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward called upon Griffin’s office to investigate a company located in Fort Smith with suspected Chinese backing.
The letter said that the Agriculture Department has “reasonable suspicion” that an LLC with an address of 4811 South Zero St. in Fort Smith has ties to China. Google maps shows that the property is about a six-minute drive from the Ebbing Air National Guard Base, a national security concern that is also cited in the letter.
Sanders posted the letter on X (formerly Twitter) Wednesday morning.
The letter, dated July 23, said an entity called 4811 S Zero Street, LLC, a name that appears to be the same as its street address, “has come to the attention” of the Department of Agriculture. There is “reasonable suspicion of ownership ties with China and the Chinese Communist Party as well as national security concerns associated with the site’s proximity to Ebbing Air National Guard Base,” it said.
Arkansas is one of a number of conservative states to pass legislation that restricts ownership of land by certain foreign investors, including the Chinese, as well as foreign nationals from other countries deemed as national security threats to the U.S.
That legislation was passed in 2023. Since Sanders signed Act 636 of 2023 into law, her administration has called on agencies to investigate the operations of a number of companies in Arkansas with direct or potentially indirect foreign investment from the Chinese.
The law also established the Department of Agricultural Intelligence to collect and analyze information about the unlawful sale and possession of land by prohibited foreign entities.
Last October, Griffin ordered Syngenta Seeds LLC to sell 160 acres of farmland in Craighead County that it acquired when it purchased Northrup King Seed Co. in the 1990s.
The attorney general also ordered Syngenta, which is majority owned by China National Chemical Corp., to pay a $280,000 civil penalty for violating Act 1046 of 2021, a law that requires disclosure of foreign ownership of agricultural land to the state.
Sanders tweeted out Ward’s letter to Griffin requesting an investigation into the Fort Smith property at 11:40 a.m. Wednesday.
“I won’t let them buy up land close to our military installations and spy on our nation’s defense assets,” Sanders said in the post. “I kicked out a CCP state-owned company once and will do it again to protect Arkansas’ Ebbing Air National Guard Base.”
Griffin released a statement 40 minutes later confirming an investigation into the property is underway.
“I have been in communication with federal and state agencies, and we are continuing our investigation into the purchase of real estate near Ebbing Air National Guard Base by a group that may include foreign nationals from the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” Griffin said on the social media platform.
The Arkansas Times reached out to the Arkansas Department of Agriculture to inquire about the evidence found that potentially implicates the LLC in violation of Act 636 but has not yet received a response. The letter from Secretary Ward to Griffin can be found here.
The property under investigation in Fort Smith appears to be an industrial warehouse in the southeast side of the city.
Two LLC’s are registered with the Arkansas secretary of state’s office under the Fort Smith address.
One, named 4811 S Zero Street, LLC, is a domestic LLC with an individual named Pei-te Lin listed as an incorporator/organizer and manager. The second, named 4811 LLC, is registered as a foreign LLC. Ingran LLC is its foreign name. Among its listed operators is Commercial Development Company, Inc., a real estate acquisition and development firm based on St. Louis.
The status of both is listed as ‘good standing’ on the secretary of state’s database.