A federal jury convicted Raleigh man Isiah Naaquan Weeks on 14 federal counts tied to a fentanyl trafficking and firearms operation that authorities say moved hundreds of thousands of pills from California and Arizona into Wake County. Jurors reached their verdicts after a three-day trial, finding Weeks guilty on nine fentanyl-trafficking counts and five firearms-possession counts while acquitting him on a single count. U.S. District Judge James C. Dever III accepted the jury’s decision and has scheduled sentencing for October 19 in Raleigh.
According to The Enterprise, prosecutors say Weeks and his associates traveled across the country to obtain large quantities of fentanyl, then arranged for the pills to be transported into Wake County for distribution around Raleigh. U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle, who announced the verdict, said Weeks had a long history of distributing fentanyl and returned to drug trafficking after being incarcerated. The operation, which prosecutors say involved high-volume shipments and coordinated communications, reportedly began in 2022 and continued until Weeks’ arrest in 2024.
An Operation That Kept Running Despite Arrests
Court testimony described an operation that didn’t stop even as it started drawing law enforcement attention. Weeks allegedly continued distributing fentanyl after one of his associates was arrested carrying 100,000 fentanyl pills, according to prosecutors. Investigators say Weeks regularly carried firearms in connection with his drug-trafficking activities, which formed the basis for the five gun counts layered on top of the trafficking charges.
Prosecutors also told jurors that Weeks searched online for “no extradition countries” and for the “best place to live for americans in mexico,” according to the same reporting. Alicia Jones, special agent in charge of the Charlotte Field Division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said holding a drug dealer accountable sends a powerful message to people who threaten public safety. The case was investigated jointly by the ATF, the Raleigh Police Department, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and IRS Criminal Investigation, and it was handled as part of Operation Take Back America, a Department of Justice initiative built to coordinate federal, state, and local resources against high-volume drug rings, according to the WPTF report on the case.
A Ring That Stretched From California to Wake County
Weeks was formally indicted in June 2024 under case number 5:24-cr-00200 and waived his detention hearing that July, remaining in federal custody continuously through his 2026 trial, per court records reviewed by PacerMonitor. He was not operating alone. West Coast supplier Raul “Ralph” Ramirez was sentenced on August 27 to 15 years in federal prison for supplying Weeks’ ring with hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills, a case Hoodline detailed last month…