Fargo, North Dakota — A St. Cloud woman will serve a 26-year federal sentence for her major role in a Mexican drug operation that transported large amounts of meth, cocaine, and fentanyl into the Midwest.
Macalla Knott was sentenced last week in Fargo after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, money laundering conspiracy, and continued criminal enterprise.
The 32-year-old will serve her sentence at a facility where she will receive substance abuse treatment, educational and vocational training, and access to mental health services and treatments.
An indictment filed against Knott and a few co-defendants accused them of conspiring with the Sinaloa Cartel to smuggle drugs into Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and other parts of the United States for distribution. Part of the conspiracy involved using violence or the threat of violence to secure payment and conceal illegal activities.
The indictment referred to Knott as “the leader, organizer, manager, and supervisor in this conspiracy.”
During a plea hearing in March 2023, Macalla Knott admitted to living in Mexico for three years, supervising, managing, and leading more than five people in the drug smuggling enterprise while directing shipments of methamphetamine, cocaine, and fentanyl to distributors throughout the upper Midwest. In turn, she coordinated payments to cartel suppliers in Mexico.
“If this woman was running it from down in Mexico, that would be an interesting thing for a DEA,” said Doug Kelley, a former federal prosecutor.
Kelley stated that people you wouldn’t expect to be involved in a cartel are often the most appealing options.
“You need an outlet for the drugs you get in here, so you get them across the border, and then you figure out how to get them up. Even back then, White Minnesota women would be wonderful; no one thinks of them as drug dealers,” he stated.
Macalla’s mother spoke with KARE 11 over the phone and said they intend to appeal, claiming her daughter was merely a pawn. Macalla’s mother stated that her daughter visited Mexico in 2020 and that she had a difficult time there.
She claimed her daughter was the type of girl that everyone adored, which is why dozens of people showed up at the courthouse last week to support her.
Federal prosecutors said the investigation into Macalla’s operation resulted in the seizure of over 100 pounds of methamphetamine, nine pounds of fentanyl powder, and 120,000 fentanyl pills.
In North Dakota, 18 defendants have been charged in connection with the conspiracy, including Macalla’s father, Jeffrey Robert Knott, who was federally indicted for obstructing justice in the prosecution of his daughter.
Jeffrey was sentenced to 7.5 years in a minimum-security federal prison.
Macalla was previously convicted at the state level of selling a controlled substance and served time in a Minnesota prison.
Another woman from central Minnesota, Deanna Gerads of Freeport, 33, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess controlled substances for her role in the same drug operation but has yet to be sentenced.
Gerads was apprehended in Mexico in August 2023, after a year as a fugitive on narcotics trafficking charges from North Dakota.
Kelley believes this case speaks to the larger issue of fentanyl making its way into the United States.
“You know it’s so terrible, I had a number of cases where it was the biggest bust in the history of the state of cocaine, you know, you still feel like you’re putting your finger in a hole in the dike,” he joked.
