Three Canadian men have been convicted of smuggling more than $1 million worth of cocaine and ecstasy through the remote Yaak River region of Lincoln County.
Last month, Preston Frederick Lahmer was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. Matthew Desmond Browne was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
The third man, Kristopher Pfeifer, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute ecstasy last November and was scheduled to be sentenced in March but that hearing was delayed. He will be sentenced in federal court in Missoula later this month.
According to court documents, a Lincoln County sheriff’s deputy pulled over Browne for speeding on June 8, 2016 near Libby. During the traffic stop, Browne appeared extremely nervous and was shaking. Browne told the deputy that he was a British Columbia resident on vacation in the U.S. but he could not tell the officer a single place he had visited during his trip.
The sheriff’s deputy requested additional officers and a U.S. Border Patrol agent arrived with a K-9 dog. The dog alerted agents of something hidden in the back of the truck and upon further investigation the officers discovered a false truck bed, which contained 60 vacuum-sealed packages of cocaine worth over $1.3 million. Browne was placed under arrest.
Browne told law enforcement that he was taking the cocaine to the Yaak where he was supposed to meet other individuals who would load up the drugs in backpacks and smuggle it across the Canadian border on foot. He told officers that he had made five other trips from California to the Yaak to help move drugs across the border during the previous six weeks.
The following morning, federal agents drove Browne’s vehicle to the proposed meeting point in the Yaak. As they approached the meeting point, they saw a male wearing camouflage waving at them. When the male noticed that there was more than one person in the truck, he appeared to panic and started to run, dropping a 9mm handgun in the process. Federal agents went to where the man dropped the weapon and found three backpacks with 45 pounds of ecstasy that was to be delivered to Browne.
Law enforcement officers began to search the area for the men and eventually apprehended Pfeifer and Lahmer. Lahmer told the officers that they had been paid $10,000 to smuggle the drugs over the border and that they had been dropped off near the boundary by their handlers.
Lahmer and Browne have since been sent to a federal prison in Oregon where they will serve their time. Once the men are released they will be put into the custody of the Department of Homeland Security to determine if they will be deported back to Canada.