The discovery of more than 900 pounds of crystal methamphetamine in a Burnsville storage unit led to authorities carrying out eight search warrants in the Twin Cities last week, according to a criminal complaint filed this week.
The law enforcement presence during the June 3 warrant action in South Minneapolis drew protesters who were concerned it was a federal immigration enforcement action.
A federal grand jury returned a four-count indictment against a 27-year-old St. Paul woman on Tuesday, charging her with assaulting officers during the protest and punching an FBI agent when she was arrested.
Information in a federal criminal complaint provides the first details about the scope of the investigation that led to the search warrants.
“The search warrants were part of a long-term drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking investigation involving a transnational criminal organization,” Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Joseph Thompson said in a statement.
$22-25M of meth initially seized
The complaint gives the following information:
The 900 pounds of crystal meth found during a previous search warrant in Burnsville were “concealed in multiple tubes separately held in large spools of metal. Agents estimate that, conservatively, this amount of methamphetamine had a street value of between $22 million and $25 million.”
Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Homeland Security Investigations executed search warrants on June 3 in Burnsville, Inver Grove Heights, Lakeville, Bloomington, Minneapolis and Northfield.
The warrants, authorized by a federal judge, “directed law enforcement to search for and seize evidence related to … transportation, storage, ordering, purchase and distribution of controlled substances, money laundering, bank fraud, human trafficking, and firearms violations” for multiple years.
The search warrants were filed under seal and will remain sealed, pending indictment, because the investigation is ongoing.
Agents seized evidence at each of the locations, including a set of gold-plated firearms at a Northfield residence. They were “adorned similarly to others regularly observed to be used by and seized from narco-traffickers.”
At a Burnsville business, agents saw multiple “Scarface” movie portraits. “Such ‘homage’ images are regularly observed by law enforcement as adornments to the walls of homes and businesses of those involved in the drug and related money laundering trades,” the complaint said.
Charges against St. Paul woman
Agents started carrying out the warrants at residences at 6 a.m. on June 3 and then progressed to business locations. Shortly after 10 a.m., federal agents began executing a search warrant at a Minneapolis restaurant at Lake Street and Bloomington Avenue.
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A crowd of people gathered in the area. They “appeared to be under the mistaken belief that the gathered law enforcement officers were present to arrest individuals illegally present in the country for immigration offenses,” the complaint said. “This was incorrect.”
While “some people in the crowd were engaged in legal protest activity,” there were incidents of assaults on law enforcement and federal agents worked to identify the people involved. One was identified as the 27-year-old St. Paul woman, the complaint said.
She was seen on body-worn cameras and open-source videos — she kicked an FBI SWAT officer, pushed another FBI SWAT officer and threw a softball at the back of a Hennepin County sheriff’s deputy, according to the charges. She is in custody.
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