From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By MARIANE ANGELA

Voters in Cameron County, Texas, overwhelmingly approved Saturday a measure to incorporate Elon Musk’s rocket complex near Brownsville as a new municipality called Starbase.

Unofficial results posted Saturday night showed 98% of the 177 ballots cast supported the creation of the town, which includes SpaceX facilities and housing tied to the company, according to The Wall Street Journal. Only residents living within the proposed town’s boundaries were eligible to vote, most of whom work for or are affiliated with SpaceX.

Once county commissioners certify the election, Starbase will begin operating as an official municipality under Texas law, which marks the launch of a rare company-run town where most residents are tied to SpaceX. The new town will oversee zoning, budgeting, and staffing while adhering to state transparency rules such as open meetings and public records requirements.

SpaceX has said little publicly about its plans, but company officials previously suggested the town could help streamline operations and support workforce growth. SpaceX vice president Bobby Peden was elected mayor of the new town and legal experts noted that state law includes conflict-of-interest rules for public officials employed by private firms operating within the municipality.

Local officials have expressed support for the company due to the thousands of jobs and tourism revenue generated by Starbase since SpaceX employs roughly 3,400 workers and contractors at Starbase. However, some residents and environmental groups remain concerned about increased rocket activity, limited beach access, and the town’s close ties to the company that created it.

The Starbase site has become central to Musk’s vision of human spaceflight, particularly SpaceX’s development of Starship, a nearly 400-foot rocket designed for missions to the moon and Mars. Though early test flights have ended in explosions, recent missions have demonstrated partial recovery capabilities and Musk described the area as a “Gateway to Mars.”

Musk will not hold a formal political role in Starbase, but the town is his brainchild, and since announcing the idea in 2021, he has urged employees to move there and expanded his personal and corporate presence in Texas. He relocated his primary residence and key businesses to the state and now lives in a $35 million compound in Austin.

Sam Cooper

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Striking a cell capable of washing $100 million within what U.S. counter-narcotics officials describe as a half-trillion-dollar global enterprise, federal prosecutors have secured convictions against three men tied to a China-based transnational laundering syndicate, exposing how Mexican cartel drug proceeds flowed quietly through Charlotte banks as overdose deaths surged across the Carolinas.

The case, centered in Charlotte, North Carolina, reveals the concealed infrastructure enabling Mexican cartels to convert fentanyl profits into clean capital, aided by sophisticated Chinese professional launderers operating like underwriters and rogue accountants—embedding illicit funds in regional banks using fake identities and a dense lattice of shell companies.

Prosecutors say Maoxuan Xia, 29, of China; Shao Neng Lin, 58, of Baldwin Park, California; and Zhou Yu, 42, of China, laundered more than $92 million in drug proceeds through this underground system. Court records show the trio used false documentation and coordinated deposits to move over $700,000 through Charlotte-area financial institutions alone.

Donald Im, a former top DEA illicit finance expert, said the system is designed so that all roads ultimately lead to Beijing’s treasury—with narcotics proceeds flowing back to China through laundering networks, while cartels handle the production and distribution of synthetic opioids sourced from Chinese factories.

The Charlotte case offers a rare, granular view into how that system functions on the ground. Xia served as a primary collector, retrieving cash from cartel-linked operatives across the United States. In less than two years, he laundered over $30 million. Lin and Yu operated back-end accounts, managing shell firms that each moved approximately $20 million. All three men entered guilty pleas this spring.

Investigators describe the laundering structure as part of a wider financial ecosystem anchored in Chinese underground banking hubs—active in cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, Mexico City, New York and Los Angeles. These operations pair U.S. drug money with Chinese nationals looking to move renminbi out of the mainland, exploiting capital flight demand to create an opaque, dollar-based network of cash flow. Funds are then reinvested in electronics exports, real estate, and layered wire transfers—largely beyond the reach of Western regulators.

The Charlotte convictions come amid a regional overdose emergency. In 2023, South Carolina reported 44.7 overdose deaths per 100,000 residents, far exceeding the U.S. average of 31.3. Georgia recorded 2,687 overdose deaths in 2022, a 300 percent increase since 2010. In North Carolina, more than 36,000 people have died from drug overdoses since 2000, with over 4,000 deaths recorded in 2021 alone. Fentanyl now accounts for nearly 80 percent of opioid fatalities in the Carolinas.

Taken together, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia form one of the most intensely affected overdose corridors in North America. Only British Columbia—where Vancouver’s urban fentanyl crisis remains in declared emergency—and West Virginia report comparably higher death rates. British Columbia recorded 48.5 overdose deaths per 100,000 residents in 2024; West Virginia reached 80.9 per 100,000 in 2022.

A parallel indictment in South Carolina, unsealed in April, further illustrates China’s financial blueprint. Prosecutors charged Nasir Ullah, 28, and Naim Ullah, 32, of Sumter, along with Puquan Huang, 49, of Buford, Georgia, with laundering millions in cartel-linked proceeds. According to court filings, the men concealed cash in Sumter-area properties before converting it into overseas electronics shipments to Hong Kong and Dubai. Investigators allege the group was linked to broader laundering cells stretching into Asia and the Middle East.

While no financial institutions were charged in the Charlotte case, the use of fraudulent documents and synthetic identities to move large sums underscores continuing vulnerabilities in U.S. bank compliance systems—particularly in regional markets where oversight mechanisms may lag behind the sophistication of illicit finance networks.

The case was prosecuted under Operation Take Back America, a multi-agency U.S. initiative focused on dismantling the financial backbone of transnational fentanyl trafficking. Officials involved say targeting launderers may yield more strategic disruption than intercepting drug shipments alone—striking directly at the revenue pipelines keeping the trade alive.

Im, who led transnational threat targeting units within DEA’s Special Operations Division, has long studied the convergence of criminal enterprise and state-sanctioned economic leverage. In his assessment, Chinese laundering brokers serve both cartel clients and parallel financial objectives of the state—helping the proceeds of Western fentanyl sales find their way into Belt and Road infrastructure loans, real estate portfolios, and capital-export schemes tied to China’s global influence-building.