San Francisco’s newly appointed top federal prosecutor announced a sweeping initiative Wednesday to arrest and charge dope peddlers in the city’s notoriously drug-plagued Tenderloin neighborhood.

U.S. Attorney David Anderson unveiled the effort as federal authorities were making arrests following federal charges against 32 defendants — mostly Honduran nationals — who were accused in a complex Bay Area drug trafficking operation that allegedly extended from the southern U.S. border to Seattle.

“The Tenderloin has become a magnet for retail drug trafficking to an extraordinary degree,” Anderson said at a news conference. “It is my belief that those people living, working and visiting the Tenderloin neighborhood should not be required to run a gantlet of crime.”

The effort to clean up the district — named the “Federal Initiative for the Tenderloin,” or FIT — comprises 15 federal agencies, including the U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security.

Anderson said the initiative is “part of a broader commitment to the rule of law” in the long-challenged neighborhood, which has a large stock of affordable housing and a high concentration of school-age children and older adults. Four major federal buildings are in the neighborhood, including the federal courthouse on Golden Gate Avenue, the federal building on Seventh Street and United Nations Plaza. Anderson said he has a “special responsibility” to the neighborhood.

He said the effort will last at least one year and will target dealers and their suppliers who bring in large amounts of heroin, crack and powder cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine. The operation will not focus on people possessing small amounts of drugs for personal use, Anderson said.

Chris Nielsen, the DEA special agent in charge of the San Francisco field division, said the federal charges unsealed Wednesday against 32 defendants “peddling their poison” in the neighborhood stemmed from an investigation that began in 2017. Agents obtained search warrants and wiretaps, and used street-level undercover operations to expose two “highly organized” trafficking operations.

Accused of heading the networks were Andy Reanos-Moreno and Eduardo Alfonso Viera-Chirinos. Both allegedly employed schemes involving teams of at least 10 street-level “commuter drug dealers” who commuted from the East Bay into the Tenderloin on BART or by carpool.

The dealers lived together in East Bay homes provided by their suppliers, purchasing drugs and effectively acting as independent contractors by negotiating the terms and prices of their product before heading into the city, Nielsen said.

“Parts of this great city are known to be open-air drug markets filled with crime and addiction,” he said. “We have seen the apparent message of tolerance, and we in law enforcement are fighting to change this.”

As federal authorities launched the new initiative, San Francisco police on Wednesday deployed an operation of their own in the district, arresting more than 50 people on suspicion of drug and weapons charges and warrant violations.

Aggressive street-level operations out of the Tenderloin Station netted 957 arrests in the neighborhood over the months of April, May and June, officials said. The San Francisco district attorney’s office said it takes action on roughly 85% of drug cases presented by police.

Dealers, though, are usually released from jail and many are back on the streets before their cases go to trial. They’re often accused of nonviolent offenses that don’t meet the state’s high standard to be held without bail.

The U.S. attorney’s office on Wednesday said it has tools that local jurisdictions lack in combatting drug dealers, like federal charges that can carry heavier sentences.

The coordinated action isn’t the first time federal authorities have sought to clean up the Tenderloin. Between 2013 and 2014, federal agents performed a series of drug stings in “Operation Safe Schools,” which led to 37 arrests in areas within 1,000 feet of schools. But authorities faced criticism and lawsuits after it was revealed that all of the people arrested were black.

Anderson said his operation “will be pursuing charges and targets on the basis of conduct and not on any improper basis.”

He added, “If there are people who engage in federal misconduct, we’re coming regardless of race, ethnicity or national origin.”

Wednesday’s announcement was welcomed by some neighborhood residents, including Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic. He applauded the effort and personally thanked Anderson.

“If we had members of my community here, they’d probably be breaking down crying right now,” Shaw said. “This is going to make a big difference. This is going to send a whole new message.”

San Francisco District Six Supervisor Matt Haney, who represents the Tenderloin, said Wednesday that the federal initiative should focus on high-level investigations, while he “will fight to make sure this initiative is also connected to a larger comprehensive, collaborative plan to meaningfully address street-level drug dealing and the deadly drug use epidemic.”

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky