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Leader of Bay Area housing, drug network sentenced to 6 years in prison

A homeless encampment along a curbside on a street
Homeless people at an encampment in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco on Feb. 24.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
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An Oakland man was sentenced to six years in federal prison for his role in leading a Bay Area drug dealing network in which he provided housing to street-level dealers operating in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Northern District of California.

Andy Manuel Reanos-Moreno, 27, who was arrested in 2019, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. Court documents describe this as a “sophisticated operation” in which Reanos-Moreno supplied dealers with drugs including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.

As head of the organization, Reanos-Moreno sourced the drugs from Southern California. The housing system was considered the backbone of Reanos-Moreno’s operation, according to court documents. He sourced houses and apartments in Oakland that he would rent out to dealers. The drugs were delivered to the homes, then dealers commuted into San Francisco to sell the drugs, said Abraham Simmons, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office.

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Court documents note that he would threaten to evict dealers if they didn’t adequately produce for the organization. The Oakland man was also in charge of “managing customer relations,” which included nearly daily calls from drug dealers to place orders for resupplies of drugs.

Reanos-Moreno utilized his knowledge of U.S. immigration laws to recruit undocumented dealers and threatened those who did not sell enough narcotics, according to the case’s news release.

Dealers were also expected to only purchase drugs for resale from him. With respect to his participation, Reanos-Moreno has admitted to the drug operation taking place at least during the first seven months of 2019.

The government’s sentencing memorandum said Reanos-Moreno “used his legal immigration status, his knowledge of real estate in the area, and his ability to pay upfront costs such as deposits on apartments as a means of both enticing street-level dealers to work for his organization and then holding their feet to the fire to ensure that they sold enough drugs or else they would lose their housing or face potential legal jeopardy.”

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This sentencing is part of a larger operation, and there have been other charges in connection with this case, Simmons said.

Reanos-Moreno has been in custody since his arrest in 2019 and will begin to serve his sentence immediately. The court has also ordered him to serve four years of supervised release in addition to his six-year sentence and forfeiture of $25,000 seized from his home at the time of the arrest.

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