Between October 27, 2025, and November 4, 2025, investigators with the Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs (SEACAD) task force identified two suspicious packages being shipped to Haines, Alaska. The packages were determined to contain a combined amount of 235 grams of methamphetamine (about a half of pound).

On November 5, 2025, the package was delivered in Haines and picked up by the recipient, Austin Elmer Benedict Hotch, a 30-year-old Haines resident. Hotch took the package to a residence in the 200 block of 2nd Avenue, where he was later contacted by SEACAD and Alaska State Park Rangers.

During the investigation, SEACAD seized 235 grams of methamphetamine (about a half of a pound) from the packages, which has a street value of approximately $50,000.00. Approximately $24,000.00 in cash was seized in the investigation.

Hotch was placed under arrest and taken to the Haines Borough Community Jail on the charges of misconduct involving a controlled substance in the 3rd degree, a class B felony.

SEACAD, Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs, is a regional task force comprised of municipal police departments from Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, Haines, Skagway, Petersburg, Hoonah, Wrangell, Craig, and Yakutat, the Alaska State Troopers, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Postal Inspection Service, and Coast Guard Investigative Service. Together, they work to investigate drug importation and distribution in the Southeast Alaska region