Anchorage Man Sentenced To 108 Months For Role In Drug Trafficking Conspiracy

Anchorage, Alaska-U.S. Attorney Karen L. Loeffler announced today that an Anchorage man, Timothy George Alex, has been sentenced by United States District Judge Sharon Gleason to serve 108 months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to sell large quantities of cocaine and heroin.  Upon being released from prison, Alex will be on supervised release for five years.

Timothy George Alex, 52, of Anchorage, Alaska, previously pled guilty to conspiring with others to distribute both cocaine and heroin.  As part of his plea, Alex admitted that he worked with his co-conspirators to sell both cocaine and heroin for profit. 

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie C. Courter, who prosecuted the case, Alex and his partner sold cocaine and heroin on behalf of a local Anchorage drug supplier.  They routinely acquired the drugs from their supplier “on credit” and then later repaid their source using cash earned from the sale of the drugs.  During the course of the conspiracy, Alex was linked to the sale of approximately four kilograms of cocaine and nearly a kilogram of heroin. 

Alex was also linked to large amounts of cash earned from the sale of drugs – more than $80,000 in total – that he either paid or attempted to pay back to his drug supplier.  During the pendency of the investigation, law enforcement seized these funds, and, as part of his guilty plea, Alex agreed to forfeit them to the United States.

During the sentencing hearing, Judge Gleason noted that Alex’s drug trafficking involved a significant quantity of cocaine as well as a sizeable amount of heroin.  She also found it troubling that Alex had engaged in this drug trafficking conspiracy just months after being released from custody for a previous drug trafficking crime.   In announcing the sentence, Judge Gleason specifically focused on the need to promote respect for the law and the need to protect the community.

Alex’s sentencing is related to a string of indictments returned in late 2014 and early 2015 as part of ongoing efforts to dismantle and prosecute several large scale drug trafficking rings with ties to Alaska, California, Texas, Arizona, and Mexico.  An Anchorage drug distributor, Daniel Harris, was sentenced in July 2015 to serve 135 months in prison for related drug, guns, and money laundering crimes.   A Texas man, Jose Ramon Canales, was previously sentenced to serve 70 months in prison for his efforts to launder drug proceeds out of the United States and into Mexico.  Canales’ co-defendant, Genaro Gutierrez-Reyes, was sentenced to 18 months for his participation in the international scheme.  Several other defendants are set to be sentenced in the coming months for their roles in trafficking heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine to Alaska and then transporting the cash proceeds of their trafficking activities back to Mexico.

This and the related cases were investigated as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF).  In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Loeffler praised the work of the law enforcement agencies involved, including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which oversees Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the Anchorage Police Department (APD), the Alaska State Troopers (AST), and the Anchorage Airport Police Department.  Additional assistance was provided by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Western District of Texas, the Eastern and Central Districts of California, and the District of Arizona, as well as federal agents in all three states.