Prineville alleged drug trafficker and girlfriend arrested in Highway 26 traffic stop

Variety of drugs seized from car

PRINEVILLE, Ore. (KTVZ) – Central Oregon drug agents pulled over and arrested a Prineville man and his girlfriend on Highway 26 north of Prineville on Wednesday, seizing an array of drugs and charging the pair with trafficking them from the Portland area to Central Oregon.

The Central Oregon Drug Enforcement Team concluded a long-term investigation with the arrest of the 26-year-old Prineville man and 22-year-old Redmond woman, having identified the man as a fentanyl trafficker in Crook County, Sergeant Kent Vander Kamp said.

He’s accused of importing fentanyl pills from the southeast Portland/Gresham area to Central Oregon and distributing them throughout the community. Vander Kamp said detectives also received information he might be armed with a gun.

After an overnight multi-surveillance operation, CODE Team detectives filed for, obtained and executed a search warrant, stopping the pair’s Audi around 11:15 a.m. on Highway 26 near Northwest Ryegrass Road, Vander Kamp said.

He noted that one lane was blocked for two hours while waiting for the search warrant to be signed, but “traffic was only stopped long enough to take the two into custody.”

CODE Team detectives and Crook County sheriff’s deputies gathered and seized from the pair’s car a commercial quantity of fake pharmaceutical tablets made of fentanyl, along with powder fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and other evidence of commercial drug sales.

The man, a convicted felon, also illegally possessed a loaded Smith & Wesson revolver, Vander Kamp said.

The man and woman were lodged in the Crook County Jail on several drug charges. The man also was charged with felon in possession of a firearm and was held on an arrest warrant for absconding from parole.

CODE Team detectives also were assisted by the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, Redmond Police Street Crimes Unit, Oregon State Police, Crook County Parole and Probation, Warm Springs Tribal Police and Crook County 911.