Alaska – A federal grand jury returned a 16-count indictment charging 10 defendants with running a large-scale drug trafficking ring in Alaska. According to the indictment, Christina Reyna Quintana, 38, Angela Marie Jasper, 39, Amber Young, 28, Rochelle Monique Wood, 37, James Anthony Schwarz, 41, Elroy Daniel Bouchard, 58, Khamthene Thongdy, 45, Colleen McDaniel, 68, Tamberlyn Solomon, 25, and Lois Jean Frank, 63, engaged in a conspiracy to traffic at least 12 kilograms of fentanyl into Alaska.
The indictment also charges Jasper, Wood, Schwarz, Bouchard, Thongdy, McDaniel and Solomon with laundering money to promote drug trafficking and concealing the source of the funds. Court documents identify 37 separate money laundering transactions, including some made internationally to Mexico, between August 2022 and July 2023.
During the entirety of the conspiracy, Quintana has been an inmate at Hiland Mountain Correctional Facility in Eagle River, Alaska. She is serving a 22-and-a-half-year prison sentence following a federal conviction for traveling from California to Sitka, Alaska, in 2018 and shooting a woman in both kneecaps over drug debt. The indictment charges Quintana with engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, which carries a mandatory life sentence, alleging that Quintana was a principal administrator, organizer, supervisor and leader of a criminal enterprise. The other defendants also face a maximum possible penalty of life imprisonment.
U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker for the District of Alaska and Special Agent in Charge David F. Reames of the Drug Enforcement Administration Seattle Division made the announcement.
The indictment is the result of an investigation by the FBI Anchorage Field Office, Drug Enforcement Administration Seattle Division, IRS Criminal Investigation Seattle Field Office, U.S Postal Inspection Service Seattle Division, Alaska State Troopers and Anchorage Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Christopher Schroeder, Alana Weber and Stephan Collins are prosecuting the case.
This investigation and prosecution were part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (“OCDETF”), which identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks.
An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
Source: Alaska Native News