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MILWAUKIE, Ore. — Social media platforms, now more than ever before, are being used to buy and sell illegal drugs and law enforcement is putting out a warning to parents.
"It used to be the way of the future and now it's the present," said Milwaukie Police Department Detective Tony Cereghino.
Cereghino has been a police officer for 24 years and a police detective for 13 years.
He told KATU News that, right now, using these social media apps and platforms gives dealers a safety shield and some anonymity that's harder for officers to track.
"It allows you to communicate and then delete that profile and create a new one if you need to. By the time law enforcement or parents have a chance to figure out what you've done and to follow up on it, that profile's gone and a lot of times, that information has been deleted and no longer exists," he said.
Traditional police sting operations have gone online, too. Cereghino showed KATU News some images of a Milwaukie Police investigation where a dealer started a friendly conversation and quickly pivoted to an attempt to sell fake prescription pain pills.
"The person showed how much money they have, and within seconds of that, we set up a drug deal," he said.
Clackamas County Sheriff's deputies detailed an arrest and seizure of drugs from an 18-year-old who was using Snapchat to sell fake prescription pain pills.
"Social-media surfing by our narcotics task force led to five arrests; a sizeable seizure of guns and fentanyl-laced...
Read Full Story: https://katu.com/news/recover-northwest/milwaukie-detective-warns-of-dangerous-drug-deals-on-social-media
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