by Dennis Dalman
A third St. Cloud woman has been arrested in Texas for allegedly helping traffic drugs from a Mexican drug cartel to North Dakota.
Deanne Marie Gerads, 33, made a court appearance Aug. 3 in Houston and was detained because of an indictment warrant issued by a federal court in Fargo, according to a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Gerads had been a fugitive – on the run from the law – for a year before her Aug. 3 arrest in Mexico by immigration law-enforcement personnel and then turned over to United States’ authorities. She will be transported soon to Fargo to make her court appearance.
Recently, another St. Cloud woman, Macalla “Kayla” Lee Knott, 30, pleaded guilty in a Fargo courtroom to charges she had helped set up a distribution enterprise for shipments of drugs from Mexico to the United States. Among the drugs were fentanyl pills and powder.
The arrests of Gerads and Knott are the result of a long-term and far-reaching investigation conducted by the Organized Crime and Drug Task Force. Eighteen other people were also charged in North Dakota. One of those who were sentenced was another St. Cloud woman, Melanie Quick, 28, who was ordered to serve 108 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Those arrested are part of the same drug-smuggling network that was established by Macalla Knott. The charges against Gerads stated she was a member of the drug-smuggling group since 2019. Some of those people, including Gerads, allegedly had direct contact with the Sinaloa drug cartel, one of the largest and most notorious in Mexico, which was founded and operated by Joaquin Guzman, nicknamed “El Chapo” (Spanish slang for “Shorty”). Guzman was arrested in Mexico, extradited to the United States in 2017, tried, found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He is incarcerated in a Colorado prison. The Sinaloa cartel, however, continues despite Guzman’s incarceration.
Among the drug shipments were, in one case, 100 pounds of methamphetamine, 9 pounds of fentanyl powder and 120,000 fentanyl pills. Fentanyl overdoses, including among children, have reached “epidemic” levels in the United States, with most of the fentanyl coming from Mexico where it is made from materials coming mostly from China.
The massive investigation into drug distribution, conducted by the federal Drug Task Force was aided by the U.S. Attorney’s Office (District of Minnesota). Also involved in the widespread investigation were the Central Minnesota Offenders Task Force, the FBI, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Sartell and St. Cloud police departments and the Stearns County Sheriff’s Office, as well as sheriff’s offices in the counties of Benton, Sherburne and Morrison. Others that helped in the investigation were the Fargo Police Department and the West Fargo Police Department.
All of the arrests noted above were made possible because of what is dubbed “Operation Unfinished Business II,” an investigative undertaking authorized by the Drug Task Force. It is an attempt to crack down on the international trafficking of illegal drugs – especially of methamphetamine, cocaine and fentanyl. That latter is a very dangerous drug that has caused so many overdose deaths, including among children who find the pills in homes and then eat one or more, thinking they are some kind of candy.
In a similar case involving drug dealing, a St. Paul man, Keonee Nasier Shaffer-Frazier, 23, was sentenced July 28 to 144 months in prison for fentanyl trafficking and illegally possessing a firearm. He pleaded guilty of obtaining fentanyl pills from out of state and distributing them throughout the Twin Cities area from 2021 to 2022. In a search of Shaffer-Frazier’s residence, officers found 57,000 fentanyl pills and $83,000 from him and from his co-conspirators in the crimes.
