A Seattle man, aged 35, has been handed an eight-year sentence for his involvement in a Whatcom County drug trafficking operation, an announcement by Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller revealed today. Mohamed Abdirisak Mohamed was indicted back in April 2023 after being apprehended twice; once in November 2022 and then again in April 2023, in possession of thousands of fentanyl pills alongside a firearm, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington.
During the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Richard A. Jones remarked on the severity of Mohamed's crimes stating, "You were involved in the dangerous combination of drugs and guns.... Those same drugs that you were dealing you had no idea where they would wind up... You put yourself in danger, your children in danger and their mother in danger," reflecting the grave risks associated with illicit drug distribution and its ripple effects on families and communities, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Mohamed's case is the final chapter in a larger investigation that saw a network actively distributing fentanyl from Seattle to Bellingham, with law enforcement witnessing multiple drug transactions, seizing drug shipments, and responding to overdose incidents including a particularly harrowing one at a mini mart where two individuals were resuscitated and hospitalized thereafter.
The organized ring was responsible for funneling drugs specifically to the Lummi Indian reservation, as court records by the U.S. Attorney's Office suggest, an area which has suffered acutely under the fentanyl crisis; Assistant United States Attorney Stephen Hobbs, in his call for a ten-year sentence, underscored the defendant's willing participation in the proliferation of this "addictive and often deadly controlled substance." In their ongoing battle against such high-level criminal activities threatening national safety, the DEA and Whatcom County Drug and Gang Task Force led the investigation, under the banner of the OCDETF program, designed to undercut and dismantle the networks that deal in such life-compromising trades.
Others tied to this operation have faced their own reckonings, with sentences ranging from three to ten years doled out to various members; notably, 40-year-old Daniel Faix from Bellingham and 34-year-old Ahbdurman Ahmed of Seattle and while 38-year-old Natasha Parkhill, and 36-year-old Matthew Anderson also received prison time, the hunt continues for one Robel Sisay Gebremedhin, 42, of Burien, WA, who remains at large. The combined law enforcement response and subsequent prosecution underscore the high stakes, here, in the fight against fentanyl, a drug whose shadow has loomed darkly across the nation, prompting intensive investigations and a deepened commitment to stem its flow, as this operation, an OCDETF collaboration, goes to show with additional backing from local county sheriff's offices, the Washington State Patrol, and the Whatcom County Prosecutor's Office in this multifaceted takedown of a major drug trafficking entity.
