OXFORD — Authorities dismantled a “major” Mississippi drug and gun trafficking ring after arresting 14 suspects in Greenville, Leland and Tupelo late last month, federal officials announced Wednesday.
Officials said the arrests targeted street dealers in a trafficking ring that stretched across the northern part of the state. Federal authorities said they went public with the arrests after months of covert operations, as part of an ongoing crackdown on trafficking in Mississippi.
“We have a problem with violent crime, and when I say ‘problem,’ it doesn’t do justice to this,” said Scott Leary, U.S. attorney for Mississippi’s Northern District.
Joshua Jackson, special agent in charge of the Bureau of the ATF division overseeing Mississippi, announces his agents’ takedown of a trafficking ring in the Delta and Tupelo at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oxford on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. Local police, state officers and federal agents banded together to execute the operations. Credit: Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi TodayFederal law enforcement banded with local police and state officers to conduct the string of investigations that resulted in the arrests — called Operation King’s Conversion, Operation Delta Fury and Operation Real Deal. Two of the operations targeted drug trafficking in the northern stretch of the state while the other investigated the flow of Glock switches into Mississippi — illegal devices that turn a regular, semi-automatic handgun into a machine gun.
Authorities identified the suspects through dozens of undercover buys of firearms, fentanyl and methamphetamine — sometimes purchasing up to $1,500 worth of illicit goods at a time, said Joshua Jackson, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives division overseeing Mississippi.
The suspects face federal charges, including drug distribution, carjacking and illegal possession of a firearm and machine gun. Leary, whose office is prosecuting the cases, said authorities saw a drop in local crime following the arrests.
Shootings and narcotic deals in Tupelo and Greenville sparked the operations, which Jackson said were a spinoff of an earlier investigation that ended in February. Officials said the crackdown is in its next phase in other parts of north Mississippi, as part of a local, state and federal effort to stem violent crime and the flow of drugs.
Few places in America see gun killings as often as some parts of the Delta. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that Washington County, home to Greenville, saw the nation’s third-highest rate of gun killings from 2022-2024 — over five times the rate of Chicago’s Cook County.
“Next, we’re going to other communities around the state, around the Northern District of Mississippi, using the same sort of concepts and techniques that we know that work, that we are efficient and focused as we move forward,” Jackson said. “We’re going to have other announcements and other arrests because this is not stopping.”
The partnership behind the operations — the Homeland Security Task Force — was specifically developed to go after crime connected to foreign cartels and gangs, which Leary said are often the source of drug and gun trafficking in communities.
Scott Leary, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi, announces his office’s prosecution of 14 suspects who were arrested on federal drug and firearm charges at a press conference in Oxford on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. Credit: Madeline Nguyen/Mississippi TodayThe arrests come after a recent string of trafficking sweeps across the northern part of the state ensnared officers and civilians alike. Last October, the FBI announced that it arrested 14 law enforcement officers as a part of a wider drug and corruption operation that stretched from the Mississippi Delta into Memphis.
Some of the officers were accused of providing protection to undercover FBI agents posing as members of a Mexican drug cartel in exchange for bribes. The main defendant in the case, former Hollandale Police Chief Brandon Addison, pleaded guilty in March to his involvement in transporting and distributing illegal drugs.
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