ST. PAUL, Minn. – A St. Paul man has been sentenced to ten years in federal prison for his role in a fentanyl trafficking ring that used children’s toys to smuggle drugs.
According to federal prosecutors, Robiel Lee Williams and his co-defendants traveled to Phoenix to pick up fentanyl pills from suppliers. They then hid the pills inside stuffed animals and mailed them to various addresses in the Twin Cities area.
“Drug dealers are endlessly creative in finding new ways to smuggle their deadly poison into Minnesota,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson. “Williams and his co-conspirators hid their deadly fentanyl in stuffed animals—literally children’s toys. We should all be appalled. Williams will rightly spend the next decade in federal prison.”
A joint investigation by law enforcement in Dakota, Ramsey, and Washington counties uncovered six packages containing more than 30,000 grams of fentanyl pills. Fingerprints from Williams and others were found on the seized shipments.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and local drug task forces across the Twin Cities metro.
