The leader of a Mexican-based heroin trafficking ring that distributed the drug to several cells operating in the Portland metro area and Clark County was sentenced Monday to eight years and one month in federal prison.
Paul Alberto Guillen, 27, is the last of 24 defendants sentenced from the ring. He was the organizer who was based in Mexico but would occasionally travel to Portland.
“At the top of the organization was Mr. Guillen,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Edmonds said. “Mr. Guillen’s impact on this community was quite significant ... we see it everyday as we walk around the city.”
The federal wiretap investigation grew out of a smaller inquiry by agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration who were initially focused on a single Portland dealer selling heroin and Oxycodone pills from his home, according to prosecutors.
Investigators identified his source of supply by the early fall of 2014 and began a more comprehensive investigation.
Guillen oversaw the distribution of heroin from Nayarit, Mexico, and north to Portland on a weekly basis, with the help of three cousins, according to Edmonds.
They distributed between 5 to 10 pounds of heroin weekly to the Portland area.
Each had a leadership role to play but the three cousins were working for Guillen, who spent most of his time in Mexico coordinating the deliveries of heroin into the United States, Edmonds said.
His cousin Christopher Guillen-Robles was in charge in Portland and another cousin, Geovany Munoz, served as the Portland backup in his absence. Alexis Guillen-Robles lived in Southern California and coordinated the movement of heroin from the border north as well as the corresponding transfer of money south from Portland, according to the investigation.
In late December 2014, agents seized seven pounds of heroin and more than $50,000 in cash during a stop of Alexis Guillen-Robles after he was seen picking up money in Vancouver from Christopher Guillen-Robles, Edmonds said.
Guillen was just 21 when he was indicted on the federal charges. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute heroin and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Guillen’s lawyer Sohaye Lee unsuccessfully argued for a five-year sentence. She said Guillen has taken steps to get his life back on the right track, obtaining his high school diploma in 2019 and working as a supervisor on a construction job site before his arrest.
Guillen’s father was a significant drug dealer and “the drug trade was normalized for him,” Lee told U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones.
Guillen didn’t fully appreciate the harm of his actions until he was in pretrial detention and saw others in jail who were suffering from drug addiction, Lee said.
“I would like to apologize to the entire society here in the United States” and in Oregon, Guillen told the judge through a Spanish-speaking interpreter. He said he has a 7-year-old son and doesn’t want his son to make the same bad choices he made.
The judge said he found it hard to believe that Guillen wasn’t aware of the impact of his drug distribution.
“You knew precisely what you were doing,” Jones said. “You did it for greed.”
