Drug dealing in SF’s Tenderloin more organized than it...

Running a drug-dealing operation in San Francisco’s Tenderloin can be both murderous and mundane, with suspected ringleaders described as ordering hits on rivals or suspected informants, dealing with high rents and slogging through commuter traffic.

The ups and downs of today’s drug trade is laid out in wiretaps and surveillance reports submitted in court records involving 32 suspected dealers recently targeted by federal authorities.

The suspects — mostly Honduran nationals — stand accused of participating in a complex Bay Area drug trafficking operation that allegedly sold cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine just blocks from City Hall and the Federal Building.

The drugs were brought up through Mexico, stored in and distributed through houses and apartments in Oakland and Hayward, then sold on street corners near the Civic Center BART Station.

According to Drug Enforcement Administration wiretaps and reports, the system runs on a top-down management structure.

The leaders of one operation lived in suburban Livermore, while their street crews lived in rented “redistributor” houses and apartments in East Oakland and Hayward, with up to 10 men per house.

“In return, street dealers agree to sell drugs provided to them by the leaders, which is a requirement for any dealer seeking to live in a redistributor house,” Eric Diamond, a DEA special agent, said in court filings. “Sometimes with their partners and children.”

The dealers act as independent contractors who “negotiate the terms of their engagement, including housing conditions,” the agent said in court filings on the cases.

Then there are the expenses, like security deposits for each apartment, that can run into the thousands of dollars.

“Everyone wants a new apartment,” one leader complains in a tapped phone call cited in court papers. “I don’t have enough to be getting apartments over here and over there.”

And like many workers who commute into the city, traffic could be tough at times for the crews.

“Oftentimes, based on surveillance, I believe the dealers carpool across the Bay Bridge together,” Diamond said.

A raid on one redistributor apartment on 24th Street in Oakland turned up an air compressor that had been altered so that the top could be triggered to open.

“They found 1,173 grams of methamphetamine, 718 grams of heroin, 467 gross grams of cocaine base, 169 grams of cocaine powder, plus $73,118 in cash,” Diamond said.

“The drugs are coming through the Mexican border and are picked up in the Los Angeles area and driven to the Bay Area. They store these drugs in a ‘trap,’ or hidden compartment, built into the cars they are driving,” he continued.

Mexican suppliers are paid through wire transfers under false names, with a bit of tech thrown in.

“After a typical wire transfer, I believe that members of the (organization) will send a photograph of the wire-transfer receipt to the suppliers via WhatsApp,” Diamond said

When the drugs arrive in the Bay Area, they are distributed by a leader who “typically delivers only enough drugs for the street-level dealers to resell over the next day or two, which I believe is a tactic designed to minimize legal exposure if the dealers are arrested,” he said.

Some of the leaders carry firearms, and sometimes the talk is deadly.

“On at least one occasion, (one of the leaders) asked someone to murder an individual in Honduras,” Diamond said.

“I have gotten rid of two enemies like that, all of the sudden,” the leader was recorded saying.

The arrests of the two crews are part of yearlong effort by the feds to break up the organized drug dealing in the Tenderloin, which continues to plague the neighborhood despite hundreds of arrests by San Francisco police in recent years.

“We are not going to restore the rule of law to the Tenderloin overnight or even in weeks or months,” said David Anderson, the U.S. attorney for Northern California. “We have committed to the Federal Initiative for the Tenderloin for at least a year because we recognize the depth of the challenge.”

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Phillip Matier appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KGO-TV morning and evening news and heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call 415-777-8815, or email pmatier@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @philmatier