Two Canton man and one Asheville man are being held on six-figure bonds after the Jackson County deputies arrested them on drug trafficking charges.

A Georgia resident suspected of supplying illegal drugs to the local community was arrested last week after a Sylva Police Department officer stopped his vehicle for traffic violations.

District Attorney Ashley Welch announced that Jeremy Edward Stepp has been sentenced as a habitual felon and can expect to spend the next 25 to 42 months in prison for possession of methamphetamine.

A major law enforcement operation targeting drug trafficking in and around the Qualla Boundary has resulted in the arrest of more than 75 individuals on federal, state and tribal charges. 

Macon County Sheriff’s Office concluded “Operation Thunderstruck” on Sept. 9 with 26 arrests for drug-related offenses while three suspects are still at large. 

Cherokee’s Tribal Council was all business this month as members plowed through a list of 15 names proposed for banishment. There wasn’t much discussion, but there was uniformity of intent as councilmembers raised their hands, 15 times in a row, for 15 unanimous votes to forbid those named from ever stepping foot on tribal lands again.

A longtime Sylva business owner was arrested on federal charges after agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms surrounded his Main Street store Friday morning.

Three months after lies on a search warrant and a fabricated drug dog alert prompted a federal judge to throw out a Cherokee drug trafficking case, it appears that the officers involved are still at their jobs, with no change in status or salary. The case involved officers and detectives from Swain, Jackson and Graham counties, as well as from the Cherokee Indian Police Department.  

A big one got away in Cherokee earlier this year when the case against a drug dealer was thrown out by a federal judge who found Cherokee police officers had lied in a search warrant.

To Jean Parris, the drug bust in Haywood County last month wasn’t just a matter of locking up suspected drug dealers.

It was about saving lives.