2 Portland-area men face federal charges of making, distributing hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - Two Portland area men are facing federal charges for making and distributing hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon.

James Dunn, Jr., 61, of Milwaukie, Oregon and Joshua Clay Wilfong, 50, of Vancouver, Washington have been charged by criminal complaint with conspiring with one another and others to manufacture, distribute, and possess with intent to distribute fentanyl and possessing with intent to distribute fentanyl.

According to court documents, in May 2021, Homeland Security, FBI, the Clackamas County Interagency Task Force and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office began investigating a drug trafficking organization allegedly run by Dunn and Wilfong that was responsible for manufacturing and distributing hundreds of thousands of counterfeit Oxycodone pills containing fentanyl in the greater Portland Metropolitan Area.

According to the Justice Department, the investigation revealed that Dunn purchased fentanyl in Mexico and smuggled it into the U.S. for use as an active ingredient in counterfeit prescription pills.

Dunn would give the fentanyl to Wilfong who would produce the pills in a makeshift laboratory he kept inside a storage unit in Vancouver. On October 12, 2022, Wilfong and Dunn were arrested while they were negotiating the sale of more than 300,000 fentanyl pills.

Investigators executed a search warrant on Wilfong’s storage unit and found a pill press and laboratory equipment covered in suspected fentanyl powder. Investigators later learned Wilfong and Dunn routinely sold hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills in single transactions and sold an average of 10,000 pills a week.

Dunn and Wilfong made their initial appearances in federal court today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie A. Russo and were ordered detained as a flight risk and danger to the community pending further court proceedings.