Centralia Police have arrested two people in a drug bust conduct Thursday morning in conjunction with the FBI Drug Task Force. A third former Centralia resident was taken into custody at her residence in Mt. Vernon.
31-year-old Ricardo Little and 40-year-old Bobby Everett were taken into custody in Centralia and Ricosha Young in Mt. Vernon. All will be arraigned on charges stemming from their warrants by the US Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois in East St. Louis.
Centralia Police say Everett was taken into custody during execution of one of two search warrants on a home in the 300 block of North Elm Street.
Little was arrested during a raid on a home in the 1000 block of Case Street.
All three of the warrants were executed by FBI SWAT teams. Eight other subjects were taken into temporary custody, questioned, and released pending further investigation. During the search of the residences, law enforcement seized methamphetamine, fentanyl, marijuana, several firearms, ammunition and US Currency. A marijuana grow operation was discovered at one of the locations.
Centralia Police Chief Greg Dodson says information gathered following a high speed chase earlier this month led to the search warrants and arrest warrants for drug trafficking that were executed on Thursday. In that case, an attempted traffic stop led to a high speed pursuit of two men who were leaving one of the residences on North Elm. Local task force officers were conducting surveillance on the residence and observed suspicious activity involving a small white vehicles at the residence. At the end of the pursuit, Mark Riggs and Jonathan Wallace were taken into custody.
Dodson says Riggs entered a negotiated plea to charges related to the pursuit earlier Thursday and received a two year prison term. Dodson says the search warrants executed Thursday were the result of an ongoing investigation conducted by the FBI and local Law Enforcement Investigators assigned to the Federal Drug Task Force. The operation includes agents from the Springfield and Fairview Heights FBI office, and officers from the Carlyle Police Department and Clinton County Sheriff’s Department.
