DEA Busts Fentanyl Dealer Near Lincoln High School

In January, undercover agents working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration busted a large fentanyl supplier on Southwest Salmon Street near Lincoln High School. He’d offered to meet the agents there to sell them $5,000 worth of fentanyl, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court.

The supplier, Alfonso Efrain Rivera-Canales, was charged with trafficking fentanyl last week.

In the wake of last summer’s crackdown on open-air fentanyl dealing in downtown Portland, suppliers have had to come up with new ways to distribute their wares.

Cops tell WW they’ve moved their operations to late at night and migrated some activity outside the downtown core. The intersection of Southwest 15th Avenue and Taylor Street, less than two blocks from Lincoln High School, is now a known “high drug trafficking area,” according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court.

Meanwhile, a DEA task force known as Group D-51 has been building cases against drug trafficking organizations operating in the Portland area, which mirror operations in other major U.S. cities. The arrest of Rivera-Canales, which appears to be part of that crackdown, offers insight into how dealers are distributing the drugs in bulk using phones to arrange deliveries. That’s a shift in strategy from the open-air markets that until recently operated in downtown, and mirrors the dealing of black tar heroin in Portland two decades ago.

In January, the Oregon State Police, who have been called in to assist Portland police with downtown patrols, arrested a dealer downtown. That dealer, hoping for lenient treatment from prosecutors, handed over the phone number of a “Honduran male who would sell fentanyl.” Police called the number.

The man who picked up was Rivera-Canales. According to the affidavit, he offered to sell police powder and pills in bulk. He directed the police to meet him in the Goose Hollow neighborhood near Lincoln, where he and two accomplices, who police believe were acting as “backup” in case of a robbery, were arrested. Hundreds of grams of powder and pills were found in their possession, the affidavit says.

While the dealing is happening near Lincoln, there’s no evidence that high school students are the customers.

A Portland Public Schools spokesperson says Lincoln’s principal, Peyton Chapman, “confirmed that there hasn’t been any issues.”