Twelve people were arrested in Fort Wayne and Noblesville, Indiana, on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, when the Indiana State Police Drug Enforcement Section and a long list of local, state and federal partners executed arrest and search warrants in Operation Iron Scale, the State Police said in its full report of the operation, released on Friday, November 6. The sweep capped a years-long investigation into what police described as a large-scale drug trafficking organization running a high-level cocaine distribution operation in the Fort Wayne area.

Source: Indiana State Police release, reported by 96.3 XKE / Adams Radio Group, Nov. 6, 2026

All twelve were arrested on the same allegation — conspiracy to commit drug dealing in cocaine or a narcotic drug. The charges are allegations based on probable cause, the State Police stressed: every person arrested is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court. The investigation is still open, and police say additional charges and additional arrests are possible.

Who was arrested

The State Police named the twelve as: Willie Arrington, 59; Simone Bryant, 69; Odean Macon, 64; Newell Cooper, 43; Marque Weeks, 51; Henry L. Bryant, 66; Dujuane Woods, 36; Darreise McCarter, 37; Aritha Harvey, 61; and Elliot Diaz, 51, all of Fort Wayne, and Samuel Calmes, 51, of Noblesville. The twelfth person named by the State Police was Sanders Davis, 59, of Fort Wayne. All were arrested during the warrant service on November 3. Police did not release individual bond amounts or say which address each person was arrested at.

What was seized

Beyond the headline cocaine figure, investigators reported seizing more than 500 grams of suspected fentanyl, over 80 grams of suspected methamphetamine tablets, more than 2,000 grams of an unidentified crystalline substance suspected to be benzene — a substance police said is sometimes used as a counterfeit drug — more than 25 suspected oxycodone pills, over 17 grams of suspected psilocybin mushrooms, and nearly 1,000 grams of suspected marijuana, alongside the cash and the 26 firearms. All of the substances are described by police as suspected; laboratory testing and court proceedings will determine what they are and who, if anyone, is convicted of possessing them.

How the sweep was run

The investigation was led by the Indiana State Police Drug Enforcement Section, working with the Fort Wayne Police Department, the Allen County Sheriff's Department Drug Task Force, the Hamilton/Boone County Drug Task Force, the Carmel Police Department and the Allen County Prosecutor's Office. Federal partners were the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Fort Wayne and Indianapolis field offices, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Fort Wayne field office, and the FBI's Fort Wayne field office.

SWAT and tactical teams did the most dangerous part of the work — entering addresses to serve the warrants at multiple locations across Fort Wayne and Noblesville. The teams taking part came from the Indiana State Police, Fort Wayne police, the Allen County Sheriff's Department, the Auburn Police Department Emergency Response Team, the Steuben County Special Response Team, ATF, DEA and the FBI. The State Police said tactical teams met resistance at two locations, and that details of those incidents were released separately by the Fort Wayne Police Department and the Allen County Sheriff's Department, the agencies investigating them.

Background: why Fort Wayne, and why cocaine

Fort Wayne is Indiana's second-largest city and the seat of Allen County, in the state's northeast corner near the Ohio and Michigan lines. It sits on Interstate 69 and Interstate 469 — a freight crossroads between Indianapolis, Detroit, Chicago and the Canadian border crossings — which is why distribution networks moving drugs in bulk find the city useful, and why a conspiracy case here was built over years rather than weeks: police say the organization was not a street-corner operation but a high-level distribution network supplying the region.

The seizure list also shows how mixed the modern drug supply has become. Alongside bulk cocaine, officers reported fentanyl — the synthetic opioid behind most US overdose deaths — methamphetamine tablets, oxycodone pills, psilocybin mushrooms and a suspected counterfeit-drug cutting substance, all in the same operation. For Punjabi and other diaspora families across the Midwest, including the trucking families who run the I-69 corridor daily, cases like this one land close to home: the same highways that carry their livelihoods are the ones distribution networks use, and the fentanyl in this seizure is the drug that has driven the overdose crisis in communities across Indiana and Ohio.

What happens next

The twelve cases now move into the Allen County and Hamilton County court systems, where each defendant will face the conspiracy allegation individually and prosecutors will have to prove both the agreement to deal and each person's part in it. The State Police said the investigation remains ongoing, with more charges and arrests possible — in long-running conspiracy investigations, a first warrant sweep is often followed by further indictments as seized phones, records and firearms are processed. Nothing further — no court dates and no bond figures — had been released as of the State Police report on Friday.