The massive narcotics seizure, which included 12.5 pounds of fentanyl, was part of a joint investigation between San Francisco police and federal agencies.
October 22, 2021 – By Amy Graff – Source SFGate, San Francisco
The San Francisco Police Department announced Tuesday that in a joint investigation with federal authorities it confiscated a massive cache of drugs, cash and ammunition and detained 18 alleged drug dealers who face multiple charges, including trafficking of fentanyl and other narcotics.
The seizure consisted of 17 pounds of illegal narcotics — including 12.5 pounds of fentanyl, 1.5 pounds of methamphetamine, 1.5 pounds of cocaine base, 1.25 pounds of heroin and 22.8 grams of oxycodone — three firearms and two high-capacity magazines each holding 30 rounds of ammunition, police said in a news release. There was also nearly $27,000 in cash.
The amount of fentanyl seized could theoretically kill 2.85 million people when you consider 2 mg is enough for a lethal dose.
The stash illustrates the unprecedented drug epidemic San Francisco faces as fentanyl floods the streets, intensifying the peril of addiction and leading to a staggering number of overdose deaths.
While myriad other drugs such as cocaine, heroin and especially methamphetamine are part of the city’s recreational drug supply, the number of accidental overdose deaths tied to the astonishingly cheap, potent and addictive synthetic opioid went up 483% from 2018 to 2020. Fentanyl was detected in the blood of 89 of the 260 total people who died from overdoses in San Francisco in 2018, while it was present in 519 of the 712 people who overdosed in 2020, data shared by the city with SFGATE showed.
The San Francisco Police Department said the fentanyl crisis has triggered an increase in gun violence in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood, where drugs are freely sold and taken on the streets.
The Tenderloin has seen a more than 71% increase in fatal and nonfatal shootings over this time last year — from 21 such incidents in 2020 to 36 in 2021, including one drug-related shooting in April that claimed the life of a 15-year-old boy, police said in the release.
“The staggering loss of life we’ve seen due to drug overdoses is a public health calamity San Franciscans haven’t witnessed since the height of the AIDS crisis,” said Chief of Police Bill Scott said in a statement announcing the latest drug seizure. “Our street drug trade has been nearly twice as deadly as COVID-19 in San Francisco. While the primary chemical culprit is fentanyl, drug-related gun violence is beginning to take an increasingly troubling toll.”
The recent operation was a joint effort by San Francisco police the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives.
Officers fanned the Bay Area last week over a three-day operation, executing 11 search warrants at nine locations.
Narcotics investigators collected evidence providing insight into the local drug supply chain. What they found suggested that ” Southern California-based drug trafficking organizations were bulk sourcing fentanyl and other narcotics to mid-level traffickers based largely in Oakland, Calif., who in turn supplied street-level dealers in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District,” police said. “In some instances, mid-level suppliers themselves engaged in street-level trafficking.”
Eight of the 18 suspects have already been charged federally by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, police said. Two suspects were hit with federal Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives ( ATF) charges, and eight defendants face state charges in Alameda County, police said.
In a similar operation in June, San Francisco police seized more than 30 pounds of drugs in Oakland and took five suspects into custody (photo above).
At the time, Scott said, “The amount of fentanyl seized in this single operation is enough lethal overdoses to wipe out San Francisco’s population four times over.”
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