Mexican national who supplied 'huge influx' of meth onto ND reservation gets 10 ½ years

FARGO — The long and winding criminal journey of Fidel Arenas-Torres, a Mexican national who operated a methamphetamine trafficking operation on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation that spanned decades, may have finally reached its end Friday, Oct. 16, in a federal courtroom in Fargo, as the 46-year-old was sentenced to 10 ½ years in prison. Arenas-Torres, also known as "El Pelón," was one week shy of completing his sentence for another federal offense when he was indicted on the most recent drug distribution conspiracy and money laundering charges in June 2024. Prosecutors said despite being behind bars, Arenas-Torres continued to direct the meth distribution ring he had been running on-and-off for more than 25 years using coded language to communicate with his girlfriend, who lived in Minnesota and arranged the drug and money exchanges with distributors on the Turtle Mountain reservation on his behalf. The distributors, identified in court documents as a Belcourt co