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Date: Jan. 13, 2026
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
Kansas City, MO – A Liberty, MO, man was sentenced in federal court today for his involvement in a fentanyl drug conspiracy.
Dakota Thomas Morris, also known as “DMO,” was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Roseann A. Ketchmark to 15 years’ imprisonment without parole. Morris previously pleaded to guilty one count of conspiracy to distribute over 400 grams of fentanyl, between Oct. 27, 2020, and Jan. 24, 2023, in the Western District of Missouri.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Maureen A. Brackett. It was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; Grundy County, Missouri Sheriff’s Office; Trenton, Missouri, Police Department; Northwest Missouri Drug Task Force; U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; Buchanan County, Missouri Drug Strike Force; and U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Mercer County, Missouri Sheriff’s Office.
This operation is part of the Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) initiative established by Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion. The HSTF is a whole-of-government partnership dedicated to eliminating criminal cartels, foreign gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and human smuggling and trafficking rings operating in the United States and abroad. Through historic interagency collaboration, the HSTF directs the full might of United States law enforcement towards identifying, investigating, and prosecuting the full spectrum of crimes committed by these organizations, which have long fueled violence and instability within our borders. In performing this work, the HSTF places special emphasis on investigating and prosecuting those engaged in child trafficking or other crimes involving children. The HSTF further utilizes all available tools to prosecute and remove the most violent criminal aliens from the United States. HSTF Kansas City comprises agents and officers from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; U.S. Drug Enforcement with the prosecution being led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.
IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. IRS-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 19 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.