Police arrested one person and are still looking for another after intercepting a package that allegedly contained a pound of methamphetamine that had been mailed from California to Bethel.
On Feb. 25, state drug investigators arrested Krista Waskey at a home in Bethel. They said that the 25-year-old visited a post office box to retrieve a package containing an electronic monitoring device they had planted inside.
At the home they tracked the package to, police said that a second suspect, 49-year-old Renardo Stewart, jumped from a second-story window and was not arrested. Inside the home, police said that they seized more than $20,000 in cash and multiple handguns.
According to charging documents, investigators intercepted the package containing a little more than a pound of meth in Nome, where it was diverted after being flagged as suspicious. The package was allegedly mailed from an address in Los Angeles, California.
Investigators said that the meth has a street value of more than half a million dollars.
The operation was led by the state’s Western Alaska Alcohol and Narcotics Team in cooperation with the Alaska Bureau of Investigations, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Bethel Police Department.
Waskey is currently being held at the Yukon Kuskokwim Correctional Center in Bethel. A preliminary hearing in her case is set for March 9 in Bethel court. Stewart was not in custody as of March 5. The state has issued a warrant for his arrest.
The pair have both been charged with one count of felony third-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail.
