The FBI brought at least 90 personnel to the Wind River Indian Reservation this week as part of a large-scale drug and gun bust, federal officials said at a press conference in Riverton on Friday.
Darin Smith, the newly appointed Interim United States Attorney for Wyoming, reported a successful operation during that press conference.
Many locals speculated on Thursday that the federal operation was related to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity or the Wyoming National Guard’s support for ICE, but that was not the case, the FBI announced that morning.
Tyler McCurdy, assistant special agent in charge of the Denver FBI Field Office, told the media on Friday that the FBI worked with other agencies over the last two days to execute 12 federal search warrants, one federal arrest warrant, and three local arrest warrants.
McCurdy said Wyoming-based FBI personnel were supplemented by a Salt Lake City FBI SWAT team, a Denver FBI SWAT team, and FBI tactical assets from Quantico, Virginia.
As part of the Rocky Mountain Safe Trails task force, the FBI worked with the US Bureau of Indian Affairs, Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, Wyoming Highway Patrol, Fremont County Sheriff’s Office, and Riverton Police Department, according to McCurdy.
That task force has had “many successes” over the past year, McCurdy continued, citing the sentencing of two illegal aliens for drug trafficking this month, as well as the July sentencing of two women caught bringing six pounds of meth to Fremont County from Las Vegas, Nevada.
Lori Hogan, a spokeswoman for the Wyoming US Attorney’s Office, later confirmed that the latter reference was to Mary Weymouth and Cathy Gordon.
According to court documents, Weymouth was a jelly seller at the local farmer’s market who struck up a conversation with an undercover DCI agent who stopped by her jelly table.
Weymouth was sentenced last month to 70 months in prison and five years of supervised release. Gordon was sentenced to 120 months’ imprisonment.
McCurdy stated that “many people have died here in Fremont County as a result of the drug cycle”.
Smith concluded the press conference by warning that “for the bad actors out there, those that are poisoning our kids by trying to bring in meth, fentanyl, and other drugs—we’re coming for you.”
Smith also thanked President Donald Trump and federal programs supporting such operations.
Federal charging documents for the arrests made during the operation were not available on Friday.
