Copyright Star Tribune
Federal immigration officers “took additional actions” during a drug-related search warrant executed in Hibbing on Wednesday, according to the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office. Around noon Wednesday, authorities including the Hibbing Police Department, U.S. Border Patrol, Drug Enforcement Administration, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed a narcotics search warrant in a commercial area in the 1800 block of 3rd Avenue E. The sheriff’s office said the warrant stemmed from a September investigation involving an undercover investigator buying cocaine from someone who lived and worked at the location. On Wednesday, an individual was arrested under suspicion of third-degree sale of cocaine and possession of a firearm by an ineligible person. The suspect, who is being held at the St. Louis County Jail, was in possession of several fake identification documents, according to the sheriff’s office. “The Sheriff’s Office is aware that federal law enforcement took additional actions during this search warrant,” the release read, but those actions were independent of the drug case, and the sheriff’s office provided no further information. A representative from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which ERO and HSI are part of, wasn’t immediately available for comment Wednesday night. Hibbing resident Linda Whiteside observed several agents standing outside La Tequila Taco Shop, a family-run business, around 1 p.m., but they did not reveal why they were there, she said. Whiteside said she also saw federal officers Wednesday outside another Mexican restaurant in Hibbing, El Charro Mexican Bar and Grill. Roseau County Law enforcement found nearly three dozen guns, all but one “unsecured and ... easily accessible” to the family’s five children, the charges read.
