Feds using hidden cameras in effort to nab San Francisco drug dealers

SAN FRANCISCO — In their endless bid to stop drug dealing in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood, authorities have added a new layer to the formula of sending undercover cops to buy drugs from whoever’s willing to sell: planting hidden cameras at the scene.

Now, federal prosecutors are marching into court equipped with videos allegedly showing defendants selling drugs to undercover San Francisco police officers. In one case, the camera was planted literally right under the suspected dealer’s nose, as he counted out cash and handed an undercover officer a bag of methamphetamine.

On March 8, an undercover officer arranged to buy 57 grams of methamphetamine from a man named Henry Alvarado for $500, prosecutors allege. The officer drove up to the meeting spot at Van Ness Avenue and Ellis Street in San Francisco, and invited Alvarado into his car. Video situated just below the passenger seat recorded everything, and police repeated the trick twice more that month in subsequent fentanyl and methamphetamine transactions, according to court records.

Federal prosecutors charged Alvarado with fentanyl and methamphetamine distribution on April 17, and used stills from the hidden camera footage to argue that Alvarado should be detained pending trial. He remains in federal custody for now but a judge has yet to make a final decision on the issue of his detention, court records show.

The Alvarado case followed a similar arrest involving Oakland resident Esmun Moyses Moral-Raudales, who prosecutors allege was caught on video selling fentanyl to an undercover officer last January, at Golden Gate Avenue and Hyde Street in San Francisco. Authorities raided his residence and allegedly found eight pounds of fentanyl, an unregistered gun, and roughly $12,000 in cash, prosecutors alleged in court records.

Like with Alvarado, prosecutors used video of the January drug deal to both justify the search of his home and argue for detention pending trial. Moral-Raudales remains in custody for now, but a judge has yet to rule on a prosecution request to keep him jailed. In it, the U.S. Attorney’s office argued he is a flight risk because he made frequent trips to Portland despite having probation conditions that forbade him from traveling out of the area.