Leader of Alaska drug ring that trafficked heroin and fentanyl out of a Wasilla apartment sentenced to 15 years

A California man who acted as the leader for an Alaska drug trafficking organization with a drug den in Wasilla was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in prison for his role in the illegal enterprise.

According to court documents, in the spring of 2022, Tyrone Hampton, 44, moved his pregnant wife and co-defendant, Stephanie Blanchard, 39, and two other associates from Southern California to Alaska to participate in the drug trafficking trade. The two associates were co-defendants Keith Crossley, 37, and Lawrence McGirt, 27. All three men were gang members in Southern California.

Upon arrival in Alaska, Hampton and his co-conspirators began selling illegal drugs, primarily heroin and fentanyl. One of the locations Hampton used for drug trafficking was an apartment in Wasilla. On April 12, 2022, the landlord of the apartment called law enforcement to trespass multiple people frequenting the apartment.

Hampton’s main drug supplier was codefendant Kevyn Watson, 43, a fellow gang member from California. At the time, Watson was serving a 40-year prison sentence in prison in Oklahoma. He had access to multiple contraband cellphones in prison. Watson used the phones to coordinate continued drug trafficking using his associates in California. Hampton and Watson coordinated the shipment of multiple packages of drugs to Alaska through the mail.

At some point in April 2022, Hampton’s cousin and co-defendant, Charles Holyfield, 41, of Arizona, reached out to Hampton about a debt that Hampton owed him. During that conversation, the two men agreed to have Holyfield mail illegal fentanyl pills from a supplier in Arizona to Alaska to be sold for a high profit and split the proceeds together. On April 25, 2026, Holyfield mailed over 2,500 fentanyl pills by stuffing them inside one of two pillows and packaging the pillows up in a box and addressing it to the Wasilla apartment building. Hampton directed Blanchard to send Holyfield $2,000 via wire transfer for the cost of the pills.

The next day, UPS attempted to deliver Holyfield’s package to the apartment in Wasilla but could not because there was no apartment number written on the label. UPS marked the package as “suspicious.” They searched the package, found fentanyl pills and alerted the Alaska State Troopers. This same day, Hampton directed Holyfield to board a flight to Alaska and Hampton picked him up from the airport. Hampton, Holyfield and Blanchard spent a night in a local motel.

On April 27, Hampton, Blanchard and Holyfield drove from the motel to the Wasilla apartment and realized the package had not arrived yet. What the defendants didn’t know is the Alaska State Troopers (AST) had seized the drugs, resealed the package with sham drugs and obtained a state search warrant for the Wasilla apartment.

That same day, AST conducted a controlled delivery of the package and waited until Hampton, Holyfield, McGirt and Crossley returned to the building to execute the warrant and arrest them. Troopers recovered the package inside a closet and found evidence of a makeshift methamphetamine lab in the apartment.

On April 28, UPS notified AST that they received another suspicious package destined for the Wasilla apartment. Inside the package, AST found a tupperware container with one kilogram of heroin wrapped in six levels of packaging. Through the investigation, law enforcement determined that Watson and Hampton coordinated the shipment of this package, referring to the one kilogram of heroin as “the whole chalupa” in text messages. Hampton directed Keith Crossley and Lawrence McGirt to each transfer $2,500 in drug proceeds via wire transfer to two individuals in California as partial payment to Watson for the shipment of heroin.

Court documents explain that in just over six weeks, Hampton deposited over $26,900 into his bank account through Cash App or ATM deposits. Extrapolated out over a year, Hampton was earning more than $228,000 a year dealing drugs in Alaska. He had no other legitimate source of income.

On June 20, 2025, Hampton pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances and one count of money laundering conspiracy. During sentencing, the Court also ordered Hampton to spend 10 years on supervised release after serving his federal prison sentence. In handing down the sentence, the Court emphasized that Hampton was motived by profit and preyed upon vulnerabilities to distribute fentanyl into Alaska. The Court also focused on Hampton’s characterization as a career offender that spent his life offending and hurting people and the communities he lived in.

“Mr. Hampton is a career criminal that moved his family and friends to Alaska for the sole purpose of peddling poison to our communities,” said U.S. Attorney Michael J. Heyman for the District of Alaska. “With no legitimate source or income, an extensive criminal history, gang membership, and a propensity to seek out crime, Mr. Hampton poses a significant risk to community safety. Communities in both Alaska and California are safer knowing that this defendant will be behind bars for the next 15 years.”

“Hampton led a multi-state fentanyl and heroin trafficking conspiracy, recklessly endangering countless lives in Alaska and in the Lower 48,” said Special Agent in Charge Matthew Schlegel of the FBI Anchorage Field Office. “As a result of this investigation, Hampton and his co-conspirators will now be held accountable for their crimes. The FBI and our law enforcement partners will continue using all available tools to disrupt and dismantle criminal enterprises, holding traffickers accountable for the havoc they wreak on our communities.”

“Daily, drugs and those who peddle them put our friends and neighbors at risk. Taking drugs off the streets is critical to the safety of our communities,” said Special Agent in Charge Carrie Nordyke, IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), Seattle Field Office. “IRS-CI and our law enforcement partners are committed to the health and safety of our communities; we will continue to bring traffickers like Mr. Hampton to justice.”

“This sentence should serve as serious warning to anyone trafficking drugs in our state. The Alaska State Troopers and our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners will find you, arrest you, and hold you accountable for your actions," said Alaska State Trooper Colonel Maurice Hughes. "The incredible work by all of the agencies involved in this investigation and prosecution demonstrates the level of effort that Alaska law enforcement will put into dismantling illicit drug operations targeting Alaska.”

Blanchard pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering conspiracy on April 24, 2023. She was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and three years’ supervised release on Aug. 10, 2023.

Crossley pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering conspiracy on June 7, 2024. He was sentenced to roughly two years and eight months in prison and three years’ supervised release on Oct. 7, 2024.

Holyfield pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances on Jan. 27, 2023. He was sentenced to time served and two years’ supervised release on Sept. 17, 2025.

McGirt was found incompetent to stand trial due to a severe mental illness, and his case was dismissed on March 4, 2026.

Watson pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances and one count of money laundering conspiracy on May 17, 2024. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 10 years’ supervised release on Aug. 22, 2024.

The FBI Anchorage Field Office, Alaska State Troopers and IRS-CI Anchorage Field Office investigated the case, with assistance provided by the Anchorage Airport High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Team and Mat-Su HIDTA Team. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Chris Schroeder and Ainsley McNerney prosecuted the case.