San Francisco drug market controlled by Honduran migrants, report finds

Honduran migrants in San Francisco are openly operating the city’s drug markets, distributing drugs to users in the California city and helping drive a real estate boom in their home country, according to a new investigative report by the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Through interviews with 25 Honduran migrants who are selling drugs or had sold drugs and reviewing police data and court cases, the San Francisco Chronicle tapped into the intricate business network that they are operating in the city. 

The “Hondos,” as some of them refer to themselves, began to dominate the open-air drug markets in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods during the pandemic. Since then, their operation has grown and the Hondos have become the largest group operating the open-air markets. 

The Honduran migrants act as the street dealers for several narcotics that come from Mexico, which are produced and provided by the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels, the report claimed. 

The cartels make the drugs, particularly fentanyl, with chemicals purchased from China. The drugs are then transported to stash houses in Oakland, where they are distributed to Honduran dealers and taken into San Francisco to sell them, The Chronicle reported.  

One of the drug dealers told the outlet that while some Hondurans struggle to make ends meet by selling drugs, others can make around $350,000 a year or more. 

Additionally, The Chronicle found that many of the migrants are sending the money they earn back to their villages, fueling a real estate boom. 

“There’s no other option for them to make a house in that way if it wasn’t for selling drugs in the United States,” said Ofelia Raudales Varela, a resident of Siria Valley in Honduras, where the majority of migrants operating the markets are from. 

"The people from her home village in the Siria Valley love San Francisco," said one of the Honduran dealers, adding that you could see San Francisco memorabilia everywhere in the town.

However, the report notes that the rise in Honduran migrants in the city’s drug dealing scene is in large part due to the lax laws regarding undocumented immigration. 

"San Francisco's status as a sanctuary city," The Chronicle explained. "The only way most dealers face deportation is if they are arrested on federal charges or in another city.” 

One of the Honduran dealers told The Chronicle that part of why they were flocking to operate San Francisco’s drug markets was because it was easy money and they were less likely to be caught and deported there. 

“The reason is because, in San Francisco, it’s like you’re here in Honduras,” another dealer said. “The law, because they don’t deport, that’s the problem. … Many look for San Francisco because it’s a sanctuary city. You go to jail and you come out.”