Feds announce string of drug busts throughout Bay Area
Sunnyvale arrest called the region’s largest federal meth seizure
SAN FRANCISCO >> A year-long series of drug-trafficking investigations centered in the Bay Area resulted in charges against 44 people and the confiscation of nearly a ton of illegal drugs and more than a dozen guns, according to federal authorities
Four federal agencies and local law enforcement were involved in four investigations and 15 separate cases that netted 1,100 pounds of methamphetamine from January 2020 to this week, which DEA Special Agent in Charge Daniel Comeaux said equates to 80 million doses. More thanhalfofthatcameoutofajan. 27 bust in Sunnyvale involving 572 pounds of the drug that U.S. Attorney David Anderson described as the largest single federal meth seizure in the history of the Northern District of California.
Authorities also reported the seizure of 500 pounds of fentanyl, and smaller amounts of cocaine and heroin. Another dimension of the wide-ranging probe involved firearms, Anderson said, adding that they uncovered evidence of the transport of gun components and weapons including a grenade launcher and .50- caliber sniper rifles. Eleven guns were seized at the Sunnyvale scene.
The allegations “reflect drug trafficking from procurement to transportation to distribution to midlevel dealers, and all the way down to street level sales. Countless individuals and entire communities suffer, but drug traffickers have no regard for the destruction caused in their path,” Anderson said in a news conference Feb. 11.
He added that the “vast majority” of the drugs recovered were supplied by the Mexicobased cartel and delivered over to the California border town of Calexico, where many of the defendants got the drugs for transport to the Bay Area.
“We, today, put a hurting on the Sinaloa Cartel,” Comeaux said.
Anderson also announced his resignation effective at the end of the month, which he said was in line with customary changes that accompany a new presidential administration.
Besides the DEA and U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations — and drug task forces in San Mateo and Alameda counties — were involved in the four investigations that ultimately yielded 15 filed cases involving 44 defendants, many of whom overlapped multiple probes. Anderson said 18 defendants are in federal custody, one is in state custody, 13 were granted pretrial release and 12 still are being sought.
Most of the warrants obtained in the probe were in San Jose and its surrounding areas. A map presented at the Feb. 11 news conference showed 11 notable meth seizures of anywhere from 10 to 100 pounds since the beginning of last summer in San Jose, Gilroy, Mountain View, Newark and San Mateo. The earliest meth confiscation in the group was 99.4 pounds June 17 in San Jose; the next-largest seizure was also the most recent, 57 pounds in Gilroy on Feb. 9.
The accumulated indictments and charges unsealed or publicized Feb. 11 focus on two central figures based in San Jose. David Campoy, 46, is accused along with family members and other charged associates of running drugs and weapons in the South Bay. The organization that federal prosecutors allege he ran is associated with the 572-pound meth seizure, which also netted 11 guns, multiple M-16 receivers and evidence they had procured 40 mm grenade launchers meant to be outfitted on their assembled rifles.
In a follow-up news release, authorities allege that Campoy had a direct contact with the Sinaloa Cartel and that the volume of his drug access meant he “exercised market power over the price and availability of methamphetamine in Northern California.”
Another key figure identified by federal prosecutors is Raudel Macias, who is accused of running a separate, family-led drug distribution network out of San Jose. The remaining charges and indictments involve alleged street and other lower-level drug dealing, and the prosecutors’ filings state that more than a dozen federal wiretaps and confidential informants making drug buys produced significant evidence in the cases.
Among the cases detailed by authorities Feb. 11 involved three men, two from the Bay Area, who flew to San Diego on July 23 to meet with a man who was described as someone who routinely moved drugs into California from Mexico.
According to a DEA affidavit, the two Bay Area men received the drugs the next day near the border town of Calexico, hidden in a car tire. Confiscated cellphones analyzed by the agency turned up a trove of text messages and photos that offered a relatively detailed timeline of the alleged crimes.
At some point, the men voiced frustration that they couldn’t cut through the tire to get to the drugs. Text messages indicate they eventually learned on the internet that they needed to cut into the sidewall of the tire.
The two Bay Area men drove back up to Northern California in a rental car but were pulled over in San Mateo, by Redwood City police, reportedly for running a stop sign. A drug-sniffing dog was with one of the police officers and detected something, prompting a car search.
That duffel bag reportedly contained 28 packages of meth, and a backpack in the front seat contained four packages. An analysis of the packages determined that they contained about 12 kilograms of nearly pure methamphetamine.