There’s an opioid crisis on a Native American reservation in North Dakota, and Bismarck Police Deputy Chief Randy Ziegler said it can be traced back to Detroit, Mich.
“The biggest problem we’re experiencing is the Detroit connection, Detroit gangs,” Ziegler said, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. He estimated 70 percent of the city's counterfeit pills containing deadly fentanyl, a synthetic drug often cut into illegal opioids, come from Detroit.
A woman named Cheyenne, who in 2015 was named Senior Athlete of the Year in her community on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, is one of the Bismarck area residents who fell into drug addiction. Her doctor first prescribed her opioids for a sports injury, and it was easy for her to find illegal drugs after she got hooked. By 2018, the 21-year-old mother was dead due to fentanyl.
“In every picture she took, she had this big smile and bright eyes,” Rhonda Packineau said of her daughter. “Then there was this darkness, this void of life.”
Although Cheyenne’s parents worked to get her treatment, she relapsed, as many who suffer with addiction do. When she died, her body was found alone and unresponsive in a hotel room.
This summer a toy dinosaur could be found at her grave, left by her four-year-old son, Kasten.
So far, no one has been charged in Cheyenne’s death.
However, police know that she and her circle often were supplied by drugs from Detroit, according to Dawn White, a 45-year-old tribal drug agent who grew up on the reservation. White had worked with Cheyenne’s parents to get her into treatment.
White and other tribal drug agents first noticed a Detroit link to an influx of drugs in 2012. They also noticed Victor Nicholas Wakefield of Detroit.
Wakefield grew up in a rough area of the city, began his life of crime as a teen and was a convicted felon by the time he was 17, said the Louisville Courier-Journal. He eventually admitted to beginning a pill pipeline into North Dakota and the reservation in 2011, years before Cheyenne’s body was found. He was 22 at the time.
Though he was known as one of the most notorious traffickers in the Bismarck area, Wakefield insists he wasn't the mastermind who decided to target North Dakota, attorney Kent Morrow told The Courier Journal.
“It was all directed from Detroit,” Morrow said. “He might have been one of the bigger players here, but he wasn't one of the bigger players in the overall conspiracy.”
Dealers from the Detroit area get their drugs from Mexican cartels that supply the U.S. with thousands of kilos of methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl annually, said the Courier-Journal.
In North Dakota, Wakefield recruited associates in Michigan to bring shipments of OxyContin, court records show. He had built a customer base by 2012 but was incarcerated in 2013 after he was caught dealing drugs within 1,000 feet of a school in Minot, N.D. Wakefield was out of prison by 2015, when he built his second drug network from his home state to North Dakota.
According to the Courier-Journal, he used Native Americans and Detroit associates as area dealers.
Traffickers from Michigan met women from the reservation in person or on dating apps, then exploited these women's connections to recruit area dealers and build a customer base, said Angela von Trytek, who oversees DEA operations in North Dakota as the assistant special agent in charge of the Minneapolis-St. Paul District Office.
White and the tribal drug force, Bismarck police, a local drug task force, agents with Homeland Security Investigations and the DEA were able to arrest Wakefield and several others in 2017, the year before Cheyenne died. Wakefield pleaded guilty in 2018 and is currently serving a 12-year sentence in federal prison.
A Detroit trafficker dubbed "Blue" took over the network and was shot dead in Detroit in 2018.
In June, a federal judge in Bismarck sentenced Mario R. Garmoo, 32, of Detroit, to 15 years in prison for smuggling hundreds of opioid pills into North Dakota cities and the Fort Berthold reservation. He had been living with a woman on the reservation in the town of White Shield, N.D. Barry Christopher Brown Jr., 28, and Larry Owens III, 26, both of Michigan, were also indicted this year on drug charges related to North Dakota.
Law enforcement agents believe the Detroit pipeline brings millions of dollars in drugs annually into North Dakota. But, why would these dealers from Detroit want to drive 19 hours to North Dakota to sell drugs?
Sitting on the Missouri River and stretching a million acres across of six counties, the Fort Berthold reservation has experienced an oil boom that provides tribal members with royalty money, making it attractive to drug dealers, according to the Courier-Journal. Compared to Detroit, there is also a sparse police presence in the area.
“It’s a tempting target, a big target,” said Morrow, who has defended suspected traffickers in the area. “Lots of money, lots of cash.”
In Detroit, DEA agents say one opioid pill sells for $5-$8 wholesale. On the reservation, traffickers can get $80-$100.
Fort Berthold is home to an estimated 5,628 enrolled members of the MHA Nation, said the Courier-Journal. Members of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara – known as the Three Affiliated Tribes – are residents. As of 2019, Bismarck has a population of nearly 73,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In Bismarck, 74 victims overdosed and eight died last year, according to police data. From Jan. 1 to mid-August of this year, 81 overdoses and 10 deaths have already been reported. On Fort Berthold alone, 108 people overdosed last year and 10 perished.
Across North Dakota, DEA agents intercepted 1,541 fake pills in the fiscal year that ended in September 2018. There have been 16,035 seizures already this fiscal year.
“The illegal drug trade is so devastating,” said MHA Nation Chairman Mark Fox, an attorney and U.S. Marine Corp veteran. Traffickers “have destroyed many of our families.”
In an effort to stop the crisis, Fox persuaded tribal leaders to create their own version of the DEA on the Fort Berthold 2015, called the Division of Drug Enforcement. Gerald "Chip" White Jr., who grew up on the reservation leads this team of six special agents to identify cartel associates and dealers and intercept drug shipments and payments.
“You got to hurt their pocketbooks, make it less profitable — and reduce demand,” Fox said.
A residential recovery center was also established in Bismarck that incorporates the Three Affiliated Tribes' culture through customs such as smudging and sweats in an effort to strengthen the spiritual foundation of those in recovery.
Dawn White, who helped Cheyenne’s family find the young woman treatment, arrested many who are treated at the center and she has encouraged them into recovery. Even as she works to save people from the enemy of addiction, White has attended several funerals of loved ones lost to drug use.
“I’m Arikara,” she said, referring to her native tribe. “We’ve always fought our enemies. For me, this is the biggest enemy against our people.”
Related
