Las Vegas Man Convicted at Federal Trial of Conspiracy to Distribute Methamphetamine and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering

SIOUX FALLS - United States Attorney Ron Parsons announced that a jury has convicted Quantiae Harris, age 49, of Las Vegas, Nevada, of Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Substance - Methamphetamine, Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Substance - Fentanyl, and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering following a 5-day jury trial in federal district court in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Harris was indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2024. The verdict was returned on March 27, 2026.

The two charges for Conspiracy to Distribute a Controlled Substance each carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years and up to life imprisonment, a $20 million dollar fine, and at least 10 years to life of supervised release. The charge for Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, a $500,000 fine or twice the value of the monetary instruments involved (whichever is greater), and three years of supervised release.

In 2023 and 2024, Harris was the leader of a California and Nevada-based drug trafficking organization responsible for bringing large quantities of methamphetamine and fentanyl to the Sioux Falls area. Harris and his underlings sent packages of drugs through the U.S. mail and used rental vehicles with hidden compartments to drive drugs from California to South Dakota. They began operating out of hotel rooms before switching to short-term rental properties, typically Airbnbs, in Sioux Falls, which they used as bases of operation to distribute the drugs to local sub-distributors.

The organization was careful not to conduct their sales at the places they were staying. When a customer needed to purchase more drugs, they would call or text one of the members and be directed to meet up at public location close to wherever the organization was staying at the time. The meetups were brief, often only lasting a matter of seconds. Customers were directed to pay either in cash or using an online funds transfer service, which was typically Cash App.

Testimony at trial established the drug trafficking organization sold over 100 pounds of methamphetamine and tens of thousands of fentanyl pills during the time it was operational. The criminal syndicate is also attributed to having been the first to introduce powder fentanyl-an even more potent and lethal form of the drug than the pill form-to the Sioux Falls market. Thanks in large part to Harris and his subordinates, powder fentanyl has since become the predominant illegal opioid in the local market.

Harris or the drug dealers who worked for him would vacuum-seal bags of collected cash to be hidden in rental cars on return trips to Nevada and California, as well as deposit some of the illegal proceeds in local banks. Harris was specifically linked to over $1.2 million in money laundering transactions during the time his drug trafficking organization was operational in Sioux Falls.

"This was a major bust of significant figure in the lurid underworld of illegal drugs. I'm incredibly proud of the team of federal, state, and local law enforcement officers and our federal prosecutors who made this case and secured the conviction of this Las Vegas drug dealer, responsible for so much misery and suffering in the Sioux Falls area," said U.S. Attorney Parsons.

"The Trump Administration has designated fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction due to its extreme lethality in extremely small amounts," U.S. Attorney Parsons continued. "In its pure powder form, it truly is a chemical weapon. If a member of your family used fentanyl in Sioux Falls over the past few years, this defendant is one of the primary drug dealers likely to have brought it here. The jury listened carefully to the evidence and returned a guilty verdict on every count. He is now out of business for good."

Below are photographs of some of the fentanyl and methamphetamine seized during the investigation and admitted at trial.

This case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the IRS-Criminal Investigation, the Sioux Falls Area Drug Task Force, the Sioux Falls Police Department, and the South Dakota Highway Patrol. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Joyce prosecuted and tried the case to a successful jury verdict. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paige Petersen assisted in the preparation of the case.

This prosecution is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. HSTF Minneapolis comprises agents and officers from FBI, HSI, DEA, ATF, USMS, USPIS, SD DCI, SFPD, MCSO, and SDHP with the prosecution being led by the United States Attorney's Office for the District of South Dakota.

A presentence investigation was ordered, and sentencing is set for June 15, 2026. The defendant was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.