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The arrests were made Wednesday as the FBI and U.S. Marshals
Service raided 13 homes across the northwestern part of the
state, mostly in Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city.
Among those arrested were two people currently incarcerated at
the Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, an hour’s drive
west of Albuquerque. Around 750 people, including some held on
immigration detainers, are incarcerated at the private prison.
Authorities in a news release announcing the arrests described
the drug-dealing operation as a “significant drug trafficking
network" that extended beyond the walls of the minimum-security
prison, to include inmates' spouses, family members and
associates.
Recently, corrections officers found inside the prison more than
1,000 fentanyl pills, heroin and methamphetamine, according to a
copy of the federal government's application to search the 13
homes this week. Authorities said they confiscated 15 firearms,
ammunition, fentanyl, methamphetamine and thousands of dollars
during the searches.
“The Department of Justice will not tolerate the exploitation of
addiction for profit in our correctional facilities,” Alexander
Uballez, the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, said in a statement.
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