Feds bust Alaska hip-hop meth kingpin in Maricopa

Federal agents nabbed a notorious Alaska hip-hop artist and meth kingpin at his Maricopa Meadows home last week, according to Matthew Tate, spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service in Phoenix.

Marshals arrested Rico Gillespie, 37, who uses the stage name Rico G The Mayor, at his Tulip Lane home June 11. He’s accused of violating a federal probation order after his early release from a federal prison in Sheridan, Ore., in March last year, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Gillespie in 2018 was sentenced to 87 months in prison on charges of running a meth ring in Anchorage and was originally set to be released in December 2025.

According to court documents, on three separate occasions in 2017, Gillespie sold meth in Anchorage. In May that year, Gillespie’s house and car were searched by law enforcement officers. During the search, cops found meth, heroin and fentanyl packaged for sale, as well as three digital scales inside Gillespie’s house. In a car Gillespie was seen driving prior to the search of the house, cops found a loaded pistol with a round in the chamber underneath the driver’s seat.

Gillespie styled himself as a local hip-hop performer and posted many videos online where his lyrics and videos depicted a glamorous lifestyle funded by drug trafficking and other illegal activities.

Before imposing a sentence, Judge Sharon Gleason noted she was particularly troubled that Gillespie dealt drugs out of the same home that he shared with young children. She was also concerned that Gillespie was a “for profit” drug trafficker and did not appear to have an addiction to the drugs he was selling in the community. At the sentencing hearing, the record was clear that Gillespie’s last verified employment was in 2014.

Gillespie was first seen in Maricopa in 2005, according to public records. However, his criminal career led him all over the country.

He has faced 36 other criminal cases in Maricopa, Mesa, Scottsdale, Anchorage, La Crosse, Wis., and Prince George’s County, Md., on drugs charges, assault, family violence, theft, battery and DUI, among many more.

In Maricopa Municipal Court, he pleaded guilty in 2013 to driving with a revoked license and failing to appear.

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