FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – The passengers lined suitcases with dryer sheets to throw off the K-9s and hid cash in pairs of jeans.
But the passengers didn’t make it onto their planes, and not because the flights were canceled.
After more than a year of piecing together aliases, social media messages, and communication between officials in Arizona and Indiana, federal authorities on Friday formally charged a man labeled in U.S. District Court documents as “the head of a drug trafficking conspiracy” based in Fort Wayne.
Artrell Scroggins faces federal charges of conspiring to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute a controlled substance, including at least 50 grams of methamphetamine and at least 400 grams of fentanyl, both Schedule II controlled substances.
In total, the 32-year-old is accused of organizing the movement of more than 22 pounds of methamphetamines as well as 20 pounds of fentanyl and other drugs that were smuggled in suitcases between Phoenix, Arizona and Fort Wayne.