PORTLAND, Ore. - April 8, 2015, Pedro Cervantes-Urbina, 34, originally from the State of Michoacán, Mexico, was sentenced to 80 months in prison after his federal conviction for conspiracy to distribute and possess with the intent to distribute methamphetamine. When the defendant is released from prison he will serve an additional three years of supervised release.
In March 2011, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Portland Police Bureau requested the assistance of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and then later the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Westside Interagency Narcotics (WIN) Team, in investigating a large-scale methamphetamine and heroin drug trafficking organization operating in the greater Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. Between the spring of 2011 and the summer of 2012, law enforcement authorities investigated the organization using informants and conducting controlled drug purchases from members of the organization. In September 2012, the government sought and received permission to start using the first of eight federal wiretaps targeting the organization.
Wire intercepts confirmed that the defendant purchased pound level quantities of methamphetamine from the drug trafficking organization for purposes of further distribution within Oregon. On Feb. 15, 2013, as a result of this investigation, federal agents arrested the defendant in the parking lot of a Portland hotel. Subsequent searches of the defendant, his hotel room, his residence and a storage shed found $4,814 in cash, cocaine, four handguns, a rifle, a shotgun, drug packaging materials, scales, ammunition, drug ledgers and bags containing methamphetamine residue. The defendant was interviewed and admitted that he sold drugs to support himself and his family. At the time of the crime, the defendant had a prior 2008 state conviction for the delivery of a controlled substance.
“The combination of drugs and firearms is a lethal mixture that threatens the safety of our community," stated Acting U.S. Attorney Billy Williams. “Our office will continue to work with law enforcement to find and prosecute the members of these criminal organizations who profit by selling drugs within our community."
This case resulted from an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) joint investigation conducted by HSI, DEA, the Portland Police Bureau’s Drugs and Vice Division, the Westside Interagency Narcotics (WIN) Team, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and money laundering organizations, and those primarily responsible for the nation’s illegal drug supply. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U. S. Attorney Scott Kerin, Chief of the District of Oregon’s OCDETF program.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
