Two men arrested in Whittier Friday allegedly traveled by ferry to Alaska with 33 pounds of methamphetamine in tow, according to federal prosecutors.
On Thursday, a police officer from the tiny town of Whittier reported a "suspicious passenger" who had disembarked from the M/V Kennicott ferry, which had arrived in the tiny Prince William Sound port town from Bellingham, Washington, according to federal criminal charging documents.
The documents don't say what made police view the man as suspicious. But when a Whittier police officer pulled Eric Hansen over, a drug sniffing dog detected an odor coming from his GMC Yukon. Police searched the Yukon and found a backpack loaded with 33 pounds of methamphetamine, according to the affidavit.
Federal prosecutors tagged it as about $225,000 worth of the drug wholesale, but worth much more when sold in individual doses to users.
A briefcase contained a boarding pass for another man, Marshal Parke. Police also found $8,000 in cash and a glass pipe with burnt edges.
Travel records showed the Parke and Hansen got on the ferry in Bellingham on July 21 and rode it all the way to Whittier, with several brief stops in Southeast Alaska towns.
The federal charging documents, filed on July 27, don't say where the men live or how old they are. They both are charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute.