Wanted Woman Had Meth and Fentanyl in Missoula

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - On November 6, 2023, Missoula Police Department Officers responded to a report from an employee of the Inn on Broadway that three people were throwing things at the side of the hotel. The officers arrived and observed three individuals standing next to a vehicle in the back lot where the employee had described them being.  

Officers identified all three individuals including 27-year-old Victoria Panzetanga. The officer conducted a check for wants and warrants and discovered that Panzetanga and another individual had outstanding warrants for their arrest. Panzetanga and the individual claimed that they were staying in a room of the hotel. 

The hotel employee confirmed that nobody was currently registered to the room they said and neither of them were registered to any room in the hotel, but that Panzetanga had entered the hotel looking for her sister.  

During a search incident to arrest, the officer removed a carton of cigarettes from Panzetanga’s right front pocket. Officers also located a glass pipe with a bulbous end and visible residue in the waistband of Panzetanga’s sweatpants. The officer knows from training and experience that these glass pipes are used to ingest dangerous drugs such as methamphetamine.  

Panzetanga was then transported to the Missoula County Detention Facility. The officer was looking at Panzetanga’s tribal ID when he observed a plastic baggie sticking out of the cigarette carton that he had previously located on Panzetanga’s person. While doing an inventory search of Panzetanga’s property, the officer removed the baggie from the carton and observed a crystalline substance in the baggie that he suspected from his training and experience to be methamphetamine.  

While searching Panzetanga’s clothing, a corrections officer located a small plastic baggie containing a blue (M 30) pill, which the officer suspected from his training and experience to be fentanyl. Both the suspected methamphetamine and fentanyl were seized. The officer tested the suspected methamphetamine with a NIK test, which came back as presumptive positive for methamphetamine. 

Panzetanga is currently being charged with felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs and criminal possession of drug paraphernalia. 

The information in this article was obtained from sources that are publicly viewable.