Arizona man sentenced to 10 years for role in trafficking fentanyl to Alaska

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – An Arizona man was sentenced today to 10 years in prison and three years’ supervised release for supplying hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to Alaska over multiple months.

According to court documents, Odarious Shaw, 25, distributed fentanyl pills to Alaska twice a week for over six months in quantities of 40-50,000 pills per shipment. In some instances, the defendant would ship as many as 500,000 pills at a time.

Law enforcement learned that Shaw would obtain pills in Arizona and instruct buyers in Alaska to send him $150 via a money transferring service to confirm the transaction. He would then provide a date when a courier would arrive on a commercial flight at the Anchorage airport with the drugs in their checked luggage. Upon arrival, the courier would deliver the pills to the buyer, pick up the cash payment for the drugs and immediately board a flight back to Arizona to deliver the money to Shaw.

On June 25, 2023, Shaw’s courier and codefendant, Corrion James, 26, arrived at the Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage on a flight from Phoenix, Arizona, with a package containing over 41,000 fentanyl pills. James was arrested at the airport after attempting to sell the pills to the arranged buyer. Those pills had an estimated street value of $400-600,000 in Anchorage, and as much as $4.8 million in rural Alaska.

Shaw continued to try to sell drugs in Alaska after James was arrested but was subsequently arrested in Arizona in August 2023. James pleaded guilty in February 2024 and was sentenced to over three years in prison for his role in the conspiracy.

At sentencing, Chief U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason found that Shaw was a leader or organizer of the drug trafficking activity in this case and said that she hopes this sentence deters people motivated by greed from trafficking this deadly drug to Alaska.

“A single pill can destroy someone’s life and the amount of fentanyl Mr. Shaw supplied to Alaska could destroy entire communities,” said U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker for the District of Alaska. “Illegal fentanyl has absolutely no place here. My office will continue to hinder the inflow of illegal fentanyl into our state by working with our law enforcement partners to disrupt the supply and distribution of this poisonous drug.”

“During the course of this investigation, the FBI and our law enforcement partners intercepted tens of thousands of illicit fentanyl pills before reaching local Alaska communities, preventing untold violence and devastation,” said Special Agent in Charge Rebecca Day of the FBI Anchorage Field Office. “With a task force approach, the FBI and our law enforcement partners will continue to identify, disrupt, and hold accountable those who are fueling drug trafficking activities in Alaska.”

The Alaska State Troopers, Anchorage Police Department and the FBI Anchorage Field Office investigated the case as part of the FBI Safe Streets Task Force and the Alaska High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) initiative.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Schroeder prosecuted the case.

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