She flew from Hawaii to Sacramento to smuggle heroin into prison for boyfriend, feds say
On a Saturday morning in mid-November, a woman from Honolulu pulled up to High Desert State Prison in a rented Toyota Camry, ostensibly to visit her boyfriend, an inmate at the facility.
Arlene-Anela Keko Olani had flown to Sacramento International Airport and had two visits scheduled with her boyfriend, Frank Avalos, at the prison near Susanville, according to federal court records.
She also had been recorded by prison officials talking to Avalos and other inmates in the preceding weeks about her planned visits, and when she arrived at the visitor’s center at 10:05 a.m. Nov. 16 investigators were waiting for her.
“During a recorded interview, Keko Olani admitted she possessed contraband,” an affidavit filed in federal court in Sacramento last week says. “A search of Keko Olani discovered one bindle of heroin concealed on her person. The heroin weighed approximately 52.9 grams.”
A search of the Camry’s trunk turned up another package of suspected heroin weighing 53.4 grams, according to the affidavit, which formed the basis of a criminal complaint filed Jan. 30 charging Keko Olani with conspiracy to possess and distribute heroin.
A no-bail warrant was issued for her arrest, but court records provide few hints as to her whereabouts. The phone number allegedly used by the inmates to call her no longer works, and she could not be reached at another phone listed for her in public records.
The federal criminal complaint follows the filing in Lassen Superior Court in November of charges that she tried to bring drugs into a prison, charges that she entered not guilty pleas to at the time. The lawyer listed in court records as representing her in that case did not respond to a phone message.
Contraband in California prisons
The charges highlight the ongoing issue of drugs, cellphones and other contraband being smuggled into California’s prisons in a number of increasingly sophisticated and brazen manners.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been fighting the problem for years, using a number of methods beyond listening to recorded phone calls by inmates.
“CDCR uses a multi-layered approach to stop drugs from entering our institutions, including institution searches, package scanners, body scanners, drug-sniffing K-9 teams and treating substance use disorder inside our facilities,” spokesman Ike Dodson wrote in an email to The Sacramento Bee. “By eliminating the flow of contraband into the prisons, the department creates safer environments for staff, inmates, and visitors.”
The scope of the problem is illustrated by the statistics on how much officials seize from inside state prisons.
Last year, CDCR says, officials confiscated 470 pounds of tobacco, 12.7 ounces of cocaine, 15.6 ounces of hash and 592.1 ounces of heroin. They also seized 1,150.3 ounces of marijuana, 815.7 ounces of methamphetamine, 105 ounces of Butane Honey Oil, 53.5 ounces of suboxone and 5.6 ounces of fentanyl.
Prison officials also recovered 12,076 cellphones last year in the prisons — roughly one for every 10 inmates in custody.
Phones used for drugs, ordering hits
But the problem continues to be a focus of state and federal officials, with authorities announcing two major federal cases last year aimed at halting drug smuggling allegedly orchestrated throughout California prisons by members of the Aryan Brotherhood and Nuestra Familia prison gangs.
More than three dozen inmates and suspected associates were charged in those cases involving allegations that the prison gangs used smuggled cellphones to orchestrate drug deals nationwide and order hits on inmates or individuals outside of prison.
One court document describes how a wiretap recorded one defendant outside of prison talking to inmates by cellphone and describing “how he was going to place cellphones, batteries, chargers, mini hacksaw blades, drill bits, ear pieces and other items inside Little Debbie snacks, including Honey Cakes” to have them smuggled into the prisons.
“The smuggled cellphones allowed Aryan Brotherhood members and other inmates to make phone calls and gave them access to encrypted chat applications, text messages, multimedia messages and email, which poses a threat to the security of the prisons and to the safety of the individuals working and/or those incarcerated there,” Chris Nielsen, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San Francisco, said when one of the smuggling cases was announced last year. “Gang members use the cellphones to to conspire, plan and execute crimes while they’re in prison.”
‘Extreme profit margins’ for contraband
The heroin smuggling case charged against Keko Olani last week did not rely on such sophisticated investigative techniques. Instead, court papers say the phone calls were made to her from inside the prison and recordings of them were reviewed after she scheduled her visits.
“During each recorded call, participants are given a recorded admonition that their conversations are being recorded,” court documents say.
And, court papers add, the motivation for the alleged smuggling effort was simply financial. Heroin may sell on the streets for about $85 an ounce, the sworn affidavit says.
“In contrast, inside a secure CDCR prison, that same ounce of heroin may sell for approximately $400 per ounce,” court papers say. “The extreme profit margin is part of why there are ongoing efforts to smuggle drugs and other contraband into California prisons and why it can be worthwhile for people outside of prison to assist in such operations.”
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 1:11 PM with the headline "She flew from Hawaii to Sacramento to smuggle heroin into prison for boyfriend, feds say."