San Francisco drug dealer deported from U.S. three times

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A Honduran man was deported from the United States three times before he was busted again in San Francisco, prosecutors said. Erlan Eduardo Cruz-Acosta, 41, was sentenced Thursday to serve 36 months in a federal prison for illegally re-entering the U.S., as well as dealing drugs in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.

Cruz-Acosta’s convictions were the results of investigations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Cruz-Acosta has a long criminal history. He was convicted in 2006 of committing child sex crimes in Virginia. In 2008, Cruz-Acosta was deported, however, he returned to the United States that same year, prosecutors said.

In 2009, Cruz-Acosta was convicted in San Francisco of selling drugs, and he was sentenced to 42 days in jail. He was deported for a second time from the United States in June 2010.

“Cruz-Acosta again illegally entered the United States in March 2014. He was convicted in federal district court in Arizona of illegal reentry of a removed alien, sentenced, and deported a third time,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office Northern District of California wrote.

Sometime after his third deportation, Cruz-Acosta slipped into the U.S. again. Investigators said he began funneling fentanyl and methamphetamine onto the streets of San Francisco. After his most recent arrest, the Honduran man admitted to distributing meth and possessing fentanyl in San Francisco in 2023, prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick sentenced the drug dealer to serve 36 months behind bars and ordered Cruz-Acosta to be immediately remanded into custody.