Three men indicted in pot scheme
Three men were indicted by a federal grand jury in Spokane on Wednesday after the panel heard evidence about a scheme to smuggle $219,000 worth of Canadian marijuana and hashish into the United States shortly before Christmas.
Kevin W. Guinn, Matthew K. Dierck and Geoffrey H. Crook have been in jail since they were arrested Dec. 23 near Laurier, Wash., in Ferry County by federal Border Patrol agents.
Agents who made the arrests found 69 pounds of marijuana and four pounds of hashish in two metal-frame backpacks and a metal-frame hockey bag hidden in the snow in a remote area just inside the United States, court documents say.
The investigation was handled by Department of Homeland Security agents assigned to the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Selby Smith, resident agent in charge of the Spokane office of the Drug Enforcement Administration who assisted in making the arrests, said the marijuana was worth $207,000 in this region, but as much as $690,000 on the East Coast.
The hashish was worth an estimated $12,000, and three times that much in New York or Miami.
Each of the three was indicted on charges of possession with intent to distribute marijuana and hashish, drug importation, conspiracy counts and criminal forfeiture of personal property associated with the case, said Assistant U.S. Attorney George Jacobs.
The arrests were made after an anonymous person called U.S. authorities at the Laurier Port of Entry and said three strangers were seen walking on McIrvin Road, a remote access road that has been used in the past to smuggle drugs and aliens into the United States, the court documents say.
When three Border Patrol agents went to the area, they didn’t find the strangers but did spot sets of snowshoe tracks. Following those tracks, agents found the backpacks and hockey bags containing the drugs in heat-sealed packages.
According to the court documents, the agents’ search for the suspects took them to the nearest “public establishment,” a bar located about 10 miles away at Orient, Wash.
In the bar, agents located, questioned, then arrested the three suspects, who matched descriptions provided by the anonymous caller, the documents say.
At a court hearing Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno set a $25,000 signature bond for Guinn, 29, who has lived in Ashville, N.C.
The judge ordered Guinn to reside with his mother, who lives in Flint, Mich., if he is released on bond prior to trial.
Imbrogno set similar release conditions for Dierck, 24, who lives in Everett.
Jacobs argued that Crook, 33, of Winlaw, B.C., poses a flight risk and should not be released on bond prior to trial. The judge said Crook would remain in jail for now, but she would take under advisement a set of release conditions suggested by the defendant’s attorney.