Portland Man Sentenced For Smuggling $2.5 Million Worth Of Marijuana

Directly Above Jar of Marijuana and Twenty Dollar Bills

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A Portland man is facing prison time for smuggling over $2.5 million worth of Oregon-grown marijuana to other states, OregonLive reports.

Reporters say 39-year-old Robert Benjamin Kawika Dawe was sentenced to two years and nine months in federal prison on Monday (April 12). Prosecutors allege Dawe worked with two accomplices and others to ship more than 1,000 kilograms (over 1.1 tons) of marijuana to several states and create false cargo bills.

The suspects also created two companies, Transport 1 Logistics and PDX Payments Solutions, to disguise their drug trafficking proceeds, according to court records. Dawe and the accomplices would travel to destination cities to receive the shipments, sell the marijuana, and either fly back with the money or make cash deposits through bank accounts, prosecutors claim.

Dawe was taken into custody after police intercepted two crates containing 276 kilograms worth of vacuum-sealed weed in October 2020, according to reporters. Officials allege these loads came from the suspect's home, where agents later seized over 100 kilograms of marijuana in $7,000 in cash.

The Portland man pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic marijuana back in November last year. Dawe says he's seeing a drug therapist and previously viewed his offense as a "gray area" when it came to marijuana sales.

You can read more about this case here.


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