Tim Walz spent the last several months attacking federal law enforcement in Minnesota as an occupying army targeting innocent people.
While Walz was holding press conferences to denounce Trump's crackdown, a gang called the Family Mob was running a 24-hour open-air fentanyl market on Lake Street – and it had been doing exactly that since the 1990s.
On Wednesday morning, eight SWAT teams hit the streets before dawn across the Twin Cities – and what the FBI found in those 14 search warrants is something Walz can't explain away.
Family Mob Gang Ran Minneapolis Fentanyl Market for 30 Years While Democrats Defunded the Police
The Family Mob has operated in south Minneapolis since the late 1990s, selling fentanyl, crack cocaine, and methamphetamine from an open-air drug market near Lake Street and Park Avenue.
Nearly 30 years of poisoning the same neighborhood.
They ran the operation in shifts around the clock, disguised fentanyl pills as legitimate oxycodone, and used violence to push rival dealers off their territory.
The investigation began after two mass shootings erupted within 12 hours along the Lake Street corridor in September 2025, leaving 10 people shot and two dead.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara handed that intelligence to the FBI – and federal law enforcement took over where Walz's state had repeatedly failed.
Minneapolis gutted its police department by nearly 40% after George Floyd's death in 2020, losing over 350 officers to retirement and resignations as nine city council members stood on a stage and pledged to dismantle the department entirely.
The Family Mob noticed.
FBI Minneapolis Drug Bust Seizes 3.5 Million Lethal Doses — Here Is What Was in Those Warrants
U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen announced Wednesday that the defendants collectively distributed enough fentanyl for more than 3.5 million lethal doses – in just seven months.
Eight SWAT teams. Fourteen search warrants. Twelve arrests.
Seized in the operation: 14 firearms, 6.5 kilograms of fentanyl, two kilograms of cocaine, 800 grams of methamphetamine, five vehicles, and nearly $100,000 in cash.
Five defendants now face federal charges – Silk Lamond Davis, Alexisus Jarmon Mosby, Kiron Jamoll Williams, Rashshon Jamahl Taggett, and Lakendrick Darnell Gilliam – with penalties up to life in prison on the most serious counts.
Seven more face state charges.
DEA Special Agent in Charge Dustin Gillespie said the Family Mob "wrongly assumed they could operate with impunity."
They had every reason to assume exactly that – because for nearly three decades in a Democrat-run city, they were right.
Tim Walz Attacked Federal Law Enforcement the Same Week the FBI Busted a Gang That Ran an Open Air Drug Market
The same week this bust happened, Walz posted on X that Trump is "weaponizing the entirety of the federal government to punish blue states."
He was responding to JD Vance's announcement that the Trump administration is holding $259.5 million in Medicaid reimbursements to Minnesota pending a federal audit that found nearly $244 million in potentially fraudulent claims.
Trump telegraphed exactly this in his State of the Union address Tuesday: "pirates" have "ransacked Minnesota."
Walz's argument – that federal law enforcement in Minnesota is the problem – collapses when you look at what that law enforcement actually did Wednesday morning.
While the governor was positioning himself as a defender of his communities, the FBI, DEA, Minneapolis Police, and Hennepin County Sheriff's Office were pulling 12 gang members off streets they had poisoned since Bill Clinton was president.
That's not occupation. That's what law enforcement looks like when it's allowed to do its job.
Sources:
- Ashley Carnahan, "Family Mob gang members, associates charged in major Minneapolis fentanyl trafficking case: DOJ," Fox News, February 26, 2026.
- "Feds arrest 12 people linked to 'Family Mob' in Minneapolis, remove 3.5M doses of fentanyl," Fox 9 Minneapolis, February 25, 2026.
- "Officials announce arrests, charges for 12 members of Minneapolis street gang," KSTP 5 Eyewitness News, February 26, 2026.
- "Vance, Oz announce pause in Medicaid funds to Minnesota amid fraud probe," The Hill, February 25, 2026.
- "Vance launches into Trump's 'war on fraud' by suspending Medicaid payments to Minnesota," NBC News, February 25, 2026.
- "FBI Statistics Show a 30% Increase in Murder in 2020," The Heritage Foundation, 2021.