Stolen shopping cart leads to arrest of wanted drug trafficker

A report of a stolen shopping cart yesterday ended in police executing a federal warrant on a convicted drug trafficker. 

Maricopa police found 46-year-old Windy Whirlwind-Soldier in the QuikTrip parking lot on John Wayne Parkway. She and another unidentified person were in possession of a stolen shopping cart, according to a police report. 

Cops confirmed Whirlwind-Soldier had an extraditable U.S. Marshals’ warrant for violating probation related to a drug trafficking conviction. 

In 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Paul G. Rosenblatt sentenced Whirlwind-Soldier to three and a half years in federal prison after pleading guilty to possession with intent to distribute more than 5 grams of methamphetamine, according to a statement from the FBI. 

On April 14, 2010, Whirlwind-Soldier and her co-conspirator, Leola Dale Edison, sold methamphetamine to undercover officers at a hotel in Flagstaff. 

Whirlwind-Soldier and Edison were among two dozen meth dealers arrested during a two-year undercover operation in the Tuba City area by the Navajo Nation Division of Public Safety Drug & Gang Unit, the FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and Flagstaff Police Department. 

Whirlwind-Soldier served a term of supervised release after completing her prison sentence in late 2014. During this supervised release, she was caught driving without a license or license plate in Scottsdale and Flagstaff in 2019, and then stealing merchandise worth $1,000 in Yuma in 2020, according to the Arizona Judicial Branch. 

After her arrest on theft charges, she failed to appear in court and a new warrant was issued for her arrest, according to Yuma Municipal Court records. 

According to documents from U.S. District Court in Phoenix, on July 29, 2021, Whirlwind-Soldier was denied a request for a second chance at supervised release. 

It’s unclear when she was released, but it was before Aug. 17, 2022, when she solicited money to leave Phoenix and return to her family in Rosebud, S.D., although leaving Arizona was not allowed under the terms of her federal probation. 

It’s also unclear how she violated her probation such that the warrant executed yesterday in Maricopa was issued. 

Public records show Whirlwind-Soldier is from Tuba City and currently lives in Mesa. It’s unclear why she was in Maricopa. 

Brian Petersheim Jr. Contributed to this report.