Dreamland: Part 3: Like Cigarette Executives: Portland, Oregon Summary & Analysis

In 2011, Milwaukee law enforcement investigates the overdose death of Toviy Sinyayev, an example of a “Len Bias case.” In a Len Bias case, a drug supplier can be charged with “conspiracy that results in death.” In order to indict, cops must prove that the victim died from the accused’s drugs, and they must establish a chain of customs. The Len Bias law gives law enforcement an effective means of better understanding the spread of opiates across the U.S., as it sheds light on the “chain of drug distribution” when, in exchange for a lighter sentence, dealers give law enforcement information about their supplier or other details about the drug trade.

Toviy Sinyayev’s case results in the establishment of a chain of custody that leads back to a man from Nayarit named Joaquin Segura-Cordero, who is something of a “regional sales manager” for a heroin cell. The Segura-Cordero case shows law enforcement how far the Xalisco heroin business has spread, extending to rural areas over a hundred miles outside Portland.

Kathleen Bickers is a federal prosecutor with many Len Bias cases under her belt. When she realizes the intricacies of the Xalisco Boys’ ties back to Nayarit and between one another, she states, “They are the Philip Morris of heroin […]. The corporate nature of the model—they depend on that cash flow.” Because Portland’s “catch-and-deport policy” prioritizes prosecution of serious felons, the Xalisco Boys—with their absence of a kingpin—resemble something of a free market, devoid of consequences. Portland uses Len Bias cases to combat the free market, using the consequence of long-term imprisonment—20 years to life, depending on how high up the accused was on the Len Bias chain—to quell the Xalisco Boys’ free market. Still, pills and heroin are so widespread across Portland that the city’s public defender sees Len Bias cases as only a temporary solution to the overdose problem.