Two inmates at Goose Creek Correctional Facility in Wasilla have been charged with conspiring to smuggle heroin and methamphetamine into the prison, Alaska State Troopers said Friday.
Mavaega Tautua, 25, and Aaron Aasa, 30, were each charged with two felony counts and a misdemeanor for their role, according to troopers.
Correctional officers had been monitoring phone calls between Tautua and 25-year-old Gwendoline Maka. Maka was arrested Wednesday while on her way to visit Tautua when her car was stopped and the drugs were discovered, according to charging documents.
Tautua is serving time for a 2010 shooting outside the former Rumrunners Old Towne Bar and Grill in downtown Anchorage. Police said at the time the shooting was gang-related.
Aasa was one of four men indicted in a string of gunpoint robberies in 2011.
Based on the amount of drugs seized, troopers believe more people are involved in the incident, deputy commander of statewide drug enforcement Rex Leath said.
Troopers were alerted Feb. 2 that Maka and Tautua had been discussing plans to gather money together and buy "fast," or methamphetamine, and "slow," or heroin.
Correctional officers had been monitoring the pair's phone calls, charging documents state.
Maka had planned to take the drugs to the correctional facility, where they would be picked up by an inmate and smuggled inside.
On Sunday, Tautua told Maka how to package the drugs and to visit him at the correctional facility. She was nervous because she didn't have a driver's license, according to charging documents. Later that day she did visit him.
More phone calls were monitored over the next few days. Tautua told her to weigh the drugs and keep them cool. In a later call she told him the weight of the drugs.
The two made plans for Maka to deliver the drugs on Wednesday at 7 p.m. "She told him he'd better have a plan and be ready," charging documents say.
Troopers were looking for Maka on Wednesday evening. "They knew what she looked like, they knew she didn't have a current driver's license," Leath said.
That alone gave them probable cause to pull over her car, Leath said.
She was stopped around 6:20 p.m. Wednesday in a black Honda SUV. Over the course of several hours, police interviewed her and procured a warrant to search her car, Leath said.
Maka told troopers that she was on her way to visit Tautua. The visit "was supposed to be to plan what to do next," charging documents say.
She told troopers she had bought $1,900 worth of drugs. She had taped them as instructed by Tautua but hadn't parceled them out as he told her to.
Maka showed troopers a taped bundle about 5 inches long that contained 25 grams of heroin. A separate bag had 6.8 grams of what looked like gray rocks, which she said she could not identify.
Field tests confirmed that the drugs tested positive as 25 grams of black tar heroin and roughly 7 grams of methamphetamine.
"We do believe it was intended to go to quite a few individuals within the prison system," Leath said.
Troopers said in a release Friday that they had arrested Tautua and Aasa. Both were charged with felony counts for conspiracy to commit misconduct involving a controlled substance in the second and third degrees and a misdemeanor charge of attempted promoting contraband.
They were transferred from Goose Creek to the Mat-Su Pretrial Facility. Tautua was given an additional $5,000 bail and Aasa was given $25,000 in bail.
The investigation was ongoing Friday.