Two Anchorage residents face federal charges alleging they used a Spenard hotel to distribute illegal drugs.
Kyoung Seo, the 62-year-old owner of the Chelsea Inn Hotel, and 36-year-old hotel employee Chantel Fields were arrested and charged Friday with conspiracy to use the hotel for various drug activities.
“Fields allegedly used the hotel to store and distribute illegal narcotics, and directed people looking to buy narcotics to their drug dealers, which were residing in the hotel,” U.S. Attorney for Alaska Michael Heyman said at a press conference Monday afternoon. “She also controlled access to the hotel and, along with Seo, allegedly charged a $20 admission fee to gain entrance to the hotel for purposes of buying illicit narcotics and prostitution.”
Rebecca Day, special agent in charge of the Anchorage FBI field office, said authorities have been investigating the Chelsea Inn for drug trafficking since 2020.
On Friday, FBI agents, together with Anchorage police officers, raided the Chelsea Inn, seizing control of the building and shutting down operations. Day said officers also seized drugs and other items from the South Anchorage residences of Seo and Fields on Friday, including 11 firearms.
“Some of which were stolen," Day said. "Over a thousand rounds of ammunition, over a pound of suspected illicit drugs, including what we believe to be fentanyl, worth tens of thousands of dollars and over $45,000 in cash believed to be proceeds of criminal activity,” Day said.
Heyman said this is the first seizure of an Alaska hotel by federal agents in connection to drug distribution. He said the raid of the Chelsea Inn is part of a wider federal law enforcement campaign called “Operation Take Back America.”
Heyman said the goal of the operation is to curb illegal immigration, target and eliminate cartel drug activity and protect the public from drug trafficking and violent crime.
“At this point, we have not received information that links any of the individuals at the hotel to illegal immigration,” Heyman said. “As for the cartel piece of it, there was a document filed this morning in a detention memo that discusses that the narcotics are, at least at this point, believed to have been imported from Mexico.”
Anchorage Police Chief Sean Case said the Chelsea Inn has been a hotspot for crime in the Spenard area for years, noting over 1,000 calls for service in the area since 2020.
“We know that over the last couple of years that this particular location has had a significant impact on the residents and the businesses around this hotel,” Case said. “And after this operation is done, we've added additional police officer resources within the area.”
A court document filed in the trafficking case said the impetus for the investigation was the October 2020 killing of Duane Fields, a former employee of the Chelsea Inn and Chantel Fields’ father. At the time Anchorage police were investigating Duane’s murder, officers recovered security footage at the Chelsea Inn showing Chantel “removing guns and alleged drugs from the body of her deceased father prior to APD’s arrival at the hotel.”
Heyman said he anticipates additional arrests will be made in connection with the trafficking investigation.
