Hanti Gamez, an illegal immigrant in the San Francisco Bay Area who also goes by Andy Omar and has been arrested fourteen times in the Bay Area since just 2015, numerous times of which were while he was on pre-trial release or felony probation, was just arrested by police for possession of a loaded firearm and large quantities of fentanyl, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
Omar, who has been deported before and most of whose numerous arrests were for drug or related offenses, is accused of selling a gram of what he claimed was cocaine, but which turned out to be the highly deadly and dangerous drug fentanyl.
Omar was caught because his customer, to whom he claimed the fentanyl was cocaine, shared the drug with two friends in his apartment and then all three passed out and one was later declared dead by emergency personnel when he did not regain consciousness. That occurred on July 2, 2023.
That attracted the attention of the SFPD-Drug Enforcement Administration task force, which ensared Omar in sting operation. To do so, they sent an undercover officer to meet him and he sold the officer, who was posing as a buyer, 27.5 grams of fentanyl for $160
Then, on July 11, Omar sold that same officer, again posing as a buyer, 82.8 grams of fentanyl and 3.7 grams of cocaine for $620. He was arrested on August 8 and, during a subsequent search, officers found him to be in possession of 475 grams of fentanyl, 209 grams of cocaine, 31.3 grams of methamphetamine and 16.6 grams of heroin. He also possessed a loaded firearm and a box of ammunition.
Gamez has been charged with one count of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl. If convicted, he faces a maximum term of 20 years’ imprisonment.
Though GOP presidential contenders have suggested bombing or otherwise using military force against the cartels to stop the flow of drugs into the US, the Biden Administration has refused to even designate the groups as terrorist organizations.
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National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said, “The administration is not considering military action in Mexico. Designating these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations would not grant us any additional authorities that we don’t already have.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for his part, recently pledged to send troops to the border to shoot those bringing fentanyl across it. He said, “I’m not gonna send troops to Ukraine, but I am gonna send them to our southern border. When these drug pushers are bringing fentanyl across the border, that’s going to be the last thing they do. We’re going to use force and we’re going to leave them stone cold dead.”
Similarly, Trump, who has also vowed to go after the cartels with a vengeance, said, “People talk about the people that are pouring in. But the drugs that are pouring into our country, killing everybody, killing so many people — there’s no army that could ever do damage to us like that still.”
Joining them was Vivek Ramaswamy, who said, “If those cartels meet the test for qualifying as a domestic terrorist organization for the purpose of freezing their assets, I think that qualifies them for the U.S. president to view them as an eligible target for the use of authorized military force.”