A deported felon, who kept coming back across the border, was the link between Portland and the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel or CJNG. CJNG is formerly known as Los Mata Zetas. It is an extremely violent Mexican criminal group based in Jalisco. Victor Alvarez Farfan, a native of Michoacán, Mexico, headed the Portland drug ring blamed for bringing large amounts of meth, heroin and fentanyl across the border beginning in October 2017.
Farfan was previously convicted on federal drug charges in the U.S. and was deported repeatedly. He may not have worried about being caught in Clatsop County, Oregon which is a 90-minute drive northwest from Portland. The tranquil coastal town is becoming a target for drug traffickers peddling meth supplied by a Mexican super cartel.
The Portland-based drug network Farfan helped to create stretched into affluent area suburbs, westbound to Oregon’s coastal cities and north into southwestern Washington. The Mexican cartel strategy is to establish drug networks beyond the Mexican border and into small, unsuspecting towns. Farfan brought in at least 20 kilos of meth, half a kilo of heroin and nearly two kilos of fentanyl.
In Seaside, known for commercial fishing and timber, traffickers easily established a strong customer base. Farfan and his children’s mother Helida Montes, settled their two children in Oregon City as he grew his business. In just six months, smugglers brought across the border almost two kilos of fentanyl — up to 1 million lethal doses of the No. 1 drug killing Americans. That load was headed from Portland to Baltimore.
Farfan’s drug ring also sent drugs to Gresham, east of Portland, Hood River, a port on the Columbia River an hour northeast of Portland, and north into Tacoma, Washington. After agents toppled the Oregon drug network in 2018 and arrested 23 suspects, there were murders in Mexico that U.S. investigators suspect were meant to scare and silence potential witnesses in the Portland case. To an extent, it worked, illustrating how cartels manipulate on both sides of the border through threats and violence.
