Nearly two years after authorities in Cody seized a plane and $260,000 from two pilots suspected of smuggling drugs, federal prosecutors have filed criminal charges against them.

An indictment filed in U.S. District Court last week alleges Scott M. Lewis, 27, and Gilbert W. Wiles Jr., 38, were lying about who they were and what they were doing as they flew around the country in 2013 and 2014.

Lewis and Wiles, both of Colorado, stand charged with two felony counts: conspiracy to operate an unregistered aircraft and aiding and abetting the operation of an unregistered aircraft.

Congress created the stiff penalties for registration violations (Lewis and Wiles face the possibility of years of prison time if they are found guilty) in an effort to help law enforcement more easily investigate drug traffickers.

The new criminal charges do not accuse the two men of being involved with illegal drugs. The indictment does allege Wiles and Lewis used fake names, falsely claimed to be aerial photographers and took other steps to avoid leaving a record of their stops across the United States. The indictment says that was part of an effort to “knowingly and willfully operate an aircraft ... while not using said aircraft to provide ‘air transportation’ ... and while knowing said aircraft was not registered.’”

Cheyenne lawyer Dion Custis, who’s been representing Wiles during the federal government’s investigation, declined to comment on the indictment. Lawyers who’ve represented Lewis didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cody police seized the men’s 1968 Cessna TU-206 airplane and the $259,717 they had in their Holiday Inn hotel room on Feb. 28, 2014. The items have been in the federal government’s custody since then.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office is trying to get permanent ownership of the plane and cash. In a separate, civil forfeiture proceeding — where the government has a substantially lower burden of proof — federal prosecutors are alleging the plane and the cash were being used in drug smuggling.

Lewis has been fighting to reclaim the plane and the money over the past two years. He contends the cash came from legitimate, unspecified activities and that Cody police shouldn’t have been allowed to search and seize the items.

The investigation began Feb. 27, 2014, when Cody police were told some pilots had been acting strangely after flying into Yellowstone Regional Airport.

The director of operations for fixed base operator Choice Aviation told police that Wiles and Lewis (who claimed to be a “Ken Howard”) had struck him as suspicious: paying in cash, quickly putting sunshades over their plane’s windows, never radioing in with their tail number, flying under less-tracked “visual flight rules” despite poor weather and taking an unusually large amount of luggage when they prepared to stay the night at the Holiday Inn.

Police later learned from hotel staff that Wiles and Lewis refused to let a shuttle driver touch one of the bags they were carrying and, when they later requested an HDMI cable, opened their door just wide enough for the cable to slip through.

Cody police summoned a drug detection dog from the Powell Police Department and it reportedly alerted to the scent of narcotics coming from the plane in Choice Aviation’s hangar.

That was enough to get a search warrant.

Police didn’t find much of interest in the plane, but in the hotel room they found the cash — mostly packed in vacuum-sealed bags inside a duffle bag — electronic items that included 15 cell phones and three apparently fake Idaho driver’s licenses, all with Lewis’ photo and different names.

The Park County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office initially charged Lewis with misdemeanor counts of flying without a license (as it turns out, Lewis actually was licensed) and flying an unregistered aircraft. He spent the weekend in jail, then was released on his own recognizance at his first court appearance. Local prosecutors later dropped their case to get out of the way of the federal investigation.

At his initial 2014 appearance, Lewis filed a sworn statement requesting a court-appointed attorney in which he described himself as a part-time worker at a hotel. He said he made between $200 and $500 a month and didn’t have any cash or own any vehicles.

However, Lewis later claimed ownership of the money and aircraft.

Federal prosecutors say they’ve learned Wiles bought the plane for $130,000 in cash in a May 2013 deal conducted in an Austin, Texas, hotel room. The feds say Wiles had the seller make out the bill of sale to Morris Point LLC, a corporation with a mailing address in the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco.

Wiles and Lewis later paid a mechanic at a business in Englewood, Colorado, thousands of dollars in cash to service and upgrade the Cessna — including adding a kit that allows it to make shorter takeoffs and landings, according to a summary of the case prepared by aviation enforcement agent Tony Martinez with the Department of Homeland Security.

The mechanic recalled Lewis identifying himself as “Steve,” while Wiles purported to be a “Karl Stassney.” According to the mechanic’s account to law enforcement, the two men claimed they needed the Short Takeoff and Landing kit because they worked for an aerial photography business in Tampa, Florida. Investigators were later told that neither Wiles nor Lewis actually worked for the company, finding that Wiles had set up email accounts in the name of Karl Stassney that “were established to bypass (the company’s) business email,” Martinez wrote.

Court records made public on Thursday say Lewis is scheduled to be arraigned on the charges on Feb. 10 in Cheyenne, while Wiles is scheduled to make his first court appearance Feb. 12.