Drug Traffickers Find Haven in Shadows of Indian Country

He had eluded the authorities for years. Witnesses against him had mysteriously disappeared. Shots were fired from his highly secured compound here last year when the state police tried to close in.

John V. Oakes has pleaded guilty to selling drugs to undercover agents.

John V. Oakes built a gated compound on the St. Regis reservation with 16 surveillance cameras on the property.

The man, John V. Oakes, like a fast-rising number of American Indian drug traffickers across the country, saw himself as "untouchable," as one senior investigator put it, protected by armed enforcers and a code of silence that ruled the reservation.

By SARAH KERSHAW

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/19smuggle.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin