State troopers said officers with the Anchorage Airport Interdiction Team seized 170 grams of methamphetamine and 50 grams of heroin last month ahead of a commercial flight bound for King Salmon.
Authorities say they seized a shipment of methamphetamine and heroin bound for Bristol Bay, and a local man now faces a decade in prison.
61-year-old Naknek resident Kenneth Bruce Bishop was arrested and indicted on federal charges of possession and attempted possession of drugs this month after he allegedly received the narcotics in the mail during a sting operation.
In a news release Thursday, state troopers said officers with the Anchorage Airport Interdiction Team seized 170 grams of methamphetamine and 50 grams of heroin last month ahead of a commercial flight bound for King Salmon.
Bishop had allegedly arranged for an associate to fly from Anchorage to King Salmon with the shipment of drugs, according to federal prosecutors.
Court filings say the staff of a regional air carrier at Merrill Field Airport discovered the illicit drugs in a Taco Bell bag during a routine screening, and the airport’s team seized them.
Law enforcement officials with the airport’s interdiction team, Alaska Wildlife Troopers, and the Bristol Bay Police Department say they secured the cooperation of an unnamed person who had tried to fly the drugs from Anchorage to King Salmon.
That person then phoned and texted Bishop and told him the drugs would be mailed to King Salmon instead of flown on the plane. Bishop allegedly picked up the package at the post office when it arrived. Alaska State Troopers pulled him over in his truck and seized the contraband in the vehicle.
Troopers estimated the street value of the illegal drugs at $220,000.
As of Thursday, Bishop is in the Anchorage Correctional Complex. His next court date is set for Aug. 23.
The Department of Justice said that state troopers, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Anchorage Airport Interdiction Team, Alaska Wildlife Troopers and the Bristol Bay Borough Police Department continue to investigate the case.
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