St. Cloud woman suspected of bringing El Chapo cartel drugs to North Dakota

FARGO — A Minnesota woman accused of trafficking drugs from a powerful Mexican cartel to North Dakota has been arrested in Texas.

Deanna Marie Gerads, 33, of St. Cloud, Minnesota, appeared Thursday, Aug. 3, in U.S. District Court in Houston on a warrant for an indictment from federal court in Fargo, the North Dakota U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release. She was arrested Tuesday by Mexican immigration officials.

Prosecutors in North Dakota plan to file one count of conspiracy to distribute and import controlled substances into the U.S.

A 26-page indictment attached to Gerads’ case file in Texas alleged she was part of a drug trafficking ring dating back to January 2019. The indictment alleged her group received drugs directly from the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most powerful drug trafficking syndicates in the world. Based in Sinaloa, Mexico, it was founded by Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, also known as El Chapo.

Gerads’ group, led by 30-year-old Macalla Lee Knott of St. Cloud, trafficked roughly 150 pounds of meth to North Dakota and Minnesota from 2021 into 2022, according to the indictment. Law enforcement seized those drugs, as well as 9 pounds of fentanyl powder and 120,000 fentanyl pills connected to the case, according to prosecutors.

Some drugs were brought into Fargo, court documents said.

Law enforcement dubbed its investigation into Knott and her group “Operation Unfinished Business II.” Federal prosecutors have charged 18 other defendants in connection to the case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in North Dakota said.

Gerads has not been added to the list. She had been at large as a fugitive for more than a year, prosecutors said.

Knott pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, money laundering conspiracy and continuing a criminal enterprise. She is set to be sentenced in December.

April Baumgarten joined The Forum in February 2019 as an investigative reporter. She grew up on a ranch 10 miles southeast of Belfield, N.D., where her family raises Hereford cattle. She double majored in communications and history/political science at the University of Jamestown, N.D.