Another arrest made in Alton drug sale crackdown

ALTON — For the seventh time in just over three months, Alton police have made a drug trafficking arrest.

Scott Sanders, 32, of Mount Major Highway in Alton, was arrested last Tuesday on two counts of sale of controlled drugs, Police Chief Ryan Heath said. Sanders was allegedly selling fentanyl, Heath said.

“It’s the seventh felony drug arrest since January,” Heath said Monday. He added that there have also been a number of misdemeanor-level drug arrests since the first of the year.

“It’s been on the radar of our and other neighboring departments,” Heath said of the department’s efforts to crack down on opioid drug sales which he characterized as an “epidemic.”

“We’ve been able to take our lower-level drug cases and from that learn about how the drugs are being sold,” the chief.

Heath said officers headed by Detective Adam Painchaud have been successful in “cultivating the information with which we have been able to produce the probable cause that has enabled us to obtain search warrant which have led to these arrests” stemming from the investigations.