Moses Lake, Warden residents arrested on drug, weapons charges
Fentanyl powder was among the drugs found in a series of search warrants and arrests earlier this week in Grant and Yakima counties.
FILE PHOTO
MOSES LAKE — Two Moses Lake and two Warden residents are in federal custody in connection with multiple investigations by the Moses Lake Police Department and two federal agencies into drug trafficking and firearms violations.
The case also led to multiple arrests in the Yakima area, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington.
Triston Duplichan, 29, Warden, was one of six people arraigned at the William O. Douglas U.S. Courthouse in Yakima on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He is charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and fentanyl and possession of fentanyl with the intent to distribute.
Duplichan was arrested Tuesday on a federal Drug Enforcement Agency warrant. Another man living at the same residence, Jose Sanchez-Cabanillas, 34, was under investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and was arrested on suspicion of unlawful possession of firearms.
Terry Moore, 66, Moses Lake and Brooke Harden, 44, Moses Lake are in federal custody, the MLPD release said. Charges against them were not specified.
Five people in addition to Duplichan were arraigned in Yakima in connection with the case, the USAO press release said.
Moses Lake Police Department Captain Jeff Sursely said the federal and MLPD investigations were separate but were connected via an overdose death in Moses Lake on Halloween 2024.
“What started out as an investigation was done in conjunction with our federal partners,” Sursely said.
The MLPD Street Crimes Unit was the local lead investigator, with its officers also acting as part of a federal task force, Sursely wrote in the release.
“These were separate investigations which had the common theme of illegal narcotics and firearm trafficking occurring throughout Moses Lake and rural Grant County,” he said.
Through their investigation MLPD detectives identified the supply chain that led to the overdose death, Sursely said.
During Duplichan’s arrest detectives recovered about 1.5 pounds of heroin, approximately 300 pills laced with fentanyl, about one pound of fentanyl powder and three firearms, Sursely said.
“In addition to the joint SCU/DEA case, SCU detectives assigned to ATF began a separate investigation into an organization operating in Moses Lake and northern Grant County which was involved in methamphetamine sales,” Sursely said.
Moses Lake detectives and ATF agents served search warrants at three locations and recovered about one pound of methamphetamine, two guns and about $30,000, Sursely said.
Additional suspects are still being sought, Sursely said.
These cases are not connected to an arrest April 18 in Grant County of a Yakima man on suspicion of possession of meth and fentanyl with intent to deliver, Sursely said.
"We have a deconfliction system, so we don’t cross paths in the middle of an investigation,” he said.
The Grant County Sheriff’s Office Crime Reduction team, GCSO patrol deputies and INET detectives assisted in serving the search warrants, Sursely said.