Federal raid nets 40 pounds of fentanyl
In what authorities said was the largest federal seizure of fentanyl in Northern California, more than 40 pounds of the potent and deadly drug was seized and seven people were arrested at two homes in Oakland and San Leandro, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced.
The suspects, prosecutors said, distributed the drug throughout the Bay Area, including to San Francisco and Concord. According to court documents, the drug ring filled more than 100 fentanyl orders in April and May.
The drug was stored in the form of white bricks, tied together with black cord and stuffed into wooden fence posts, authorities said.
Arrested in the raid on May 25 on the two homes were Javier Castro “Gio” BanegasMedina, 39; Elmer RosalesMontes, 28; Jose Ivan CruzCaceres, 31; Keny Alduvi RomeroLopez, 23; Jihad Jad Tawasha, 34; William Joseph Laughren, 25; and Heather Borges, 33, according to acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds.
Also seized in the raids were several firearms and $36,000 in cash. The street value of the confiscated drug was not immediately known.
All suspects were in custody at undisclosed
detention facilities in California and Oregon, according to Abraham Simmons, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
At the two homes, agents also said they discovered dyes to color the drug blue, pink, purple, green and yellow. Fentanyl is often known by the color emitted when the drug is burned.
Aiding federal agents in connection with the investigation were the police departments of Concord, Walnut Creek, Richmond and Pleasant Hill, along with the Contra Costa Sheriff ’s Office and the California Highway Patrol.
The announcement of the arrests came a week after publication of a Chronicle analysis showing a broad increase in the seizure of fentanyl, primarily in the Tenderloin of San Francisco, where authorities seized 18 pounds of the drug in the first four months of 2021, compared with 12 pounds for all of 2020 and less than 3 pounds for 2019.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency said the seizures in Northern and Central California in the first five months of 2021 exceeded the seizures in all of 2020.
Because it is a synthetic substance than can be produced in a laboratory, fentanyl is cheaper to produce than heroin, which must be made from poppies. As little as 7 hundredthousandths of an ounce of fentanyl is a fatal dose.
U.S. customs agents said they seized nearly 4,000 pounds of fentanyl at California border crossings and field offices from October through April — four times more than during the same period a year earlier.
In February, federal agents seized 1,000 pounds of methampetamine, 20 pounds of heroin, 20 pounds of cocaine and 1 pound of fentanyl in another large, coordinated drug bust centered in the South Bay and on the Peninsula.