DPS announces multiple indictments in large drug trafficking ring

On Friday, the Alaska Bureau of Investigation, along with the Department of Public Safety announced that 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, along with multiple other suspects, ranging in ages from 25 to 68, engaged in a conspiracy to traffic at least 12 kilograms of fentanyl into Alaska. The indictment also lists additional charges of money laundering 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 already 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.

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.