OAKLAND (CBS SF) — Alameda County sheriff deputies and their partners at the Narcotics Task Force have seized 92.5 pounds of illicit fentanyl at locations in Oakland and Hayward, authorities announced Saturday morning.
The sheriff’s department took to Twitter Saturday morning with photos of tables overflowing with bags of fentanyl pills and powder.
READ MORE: San Francisco Tech CEO Jack Dorsey’s New Official Title: ‘Block Head’
“That’s 42,000 grams that were headed for the streets of the Bay Area,” they tweeted. “This is a glimpse of the fentanyl epidemic.”
Alameda County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said the raids took place on Friday and uncovered a major fentanyl manufacturing lab. One suspect was arrested and a second remains at large.
No other details were released.
For more than a year, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have been targeting a major pipeline of fentanyl from East Bay dealers into San Francisco, particularly the city’s troubled Tenderloin neighborhood.
READ MORE: 91-Year-Old Pedestrian Fatally Struck Crossing Street in Oakland
Overdose deaths have been on the rise in San Francisco and across the Bay Area. According to the DEA, one kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people. Friday’sseizure was equal to 42 kilograms.
While it was not immediately known if there was any connection, the many tentacles of the pipeline was revealed by federal prosecutors who charged a pair of Berkeley teens Thursday with illegally selling fentanyl and methamphetamines in the Tenderloin.
U.S. Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds said 19-year-old David Ordonez and 18-year-old Juan Carlos Hernandez-Ordonez repeatedly traveled from their Berkeley home into San Francisco to allegedly deal narcotics in the open-air drug market in the 7th and Market Street area.
The feds say the two Berkeley teens allegedly engaged together in a conspiracy to distribute fentanyl in the Tenderloin from February 9 to March 29, 2022.
The complaint specifically describes five narcotics sales during this time period to undercover San Francisco police officers. In each sale, either Ordonez or Hernandez-Ordonez sold fentanyl or methamphetamine, and sometimes both, to an undercover officer.
MORE NEWS: Two Californians – and Californias – Vie for Leadership of U.S. House
The four counts in the federal complaint each carry the same minimum and maximum criminal penalties. The statutory penalty for each one of the counts is a minimum of five years of imprisonment and a maximum of 40 years of imprisonment and a maximum of a $5 million fine.
Source: sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com.