Cedar Rapids woman sent to federal prison for meth trafficking

Date: April 13, 2026

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A woman who conspired to distribute methamphetamine was sentenced today to 12 years in federal prison. Rose Lee Beranek from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the prison term after a Sept. 24, 2025, guilty plea to conspiracy to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine.

In a plea agreement, Beranek admitted that in February 2024, she obtained nearly two pounds of methamphetamine in Arizona. She was driving to Cedar Rapids to distribute the methamphetamine, when law enforcement officers pulled over her car in Oklahoma. Law enforcement officers searched her car and found the methamphetamine in vacuum-sealed bags.

Beranek was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams. Beranek was sentenced to 144 months' imprisonment and must also serve a 5-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system.

This case 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 Kansas City is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, covering Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska. HSTF Kansas City is composed of agents and officers from the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the United States Marshals Service, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the State Investigative Agencies for Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska, and the Kansas City Missouri Police Department.

This HSTF case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Devra T. Hake and investigated by HSTF Kansas City, with the assistance of the Linn County Sheriff's Office; the Cedar Rapids Police Department; the Marion Police Department; and the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement.

This case is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.

IRS-CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. It is the only federal law enforcement agency with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code. IRS-CI has 18 field offices located across the U.S. and maintains an international presence through attaché posts abroad.