CENTRALIA, IL — Centralia police officers arrested a 40-year-old woman Tuesday following an operation aimed at combating drug trafficking in the area.

Surrona Phelps was charged with Possession and Delivery of Methamphetamine within 500 feet of a church and school Phelps was processed and transported to the Marion County Jail to appear in court on the charges.

According to Centralia Police Chief Greg Dodson his department’s Investigations Division set up officers covertly in an area where they had set up a prearranged drug purchase. The interdiction team then witnessed the prearranged drug deal take place and in a tactic called a Buy/Bust, they then initiated an arrest of the drug trafficker in the act of completing the drug transaction.

Two grams of a substance that field-tested positive for Methamphetamine were recovered at the scene and resulted in Phelps’ arrest.

Dodson says the blatant open public sales of illicit drugs in the community cannot be tolerated as they diminish the sense of safety and security felt by the citizens. He says reducing and or eliminating these types of open public sales is a priority for the Centralia Police Department to ensure the citizens of the community feel safe in our public spaces.

Phelps was already scheduled for a Thursday pretrial hearing on a 2018 charge of Class 3 felony being a felon in possession of a firearm. She was free on $500 bond in that case when she was arrested Tuesday on the new charges.