A federal drug enforcement surge in San Francisco just netted 89 arrests, over 2.2 kilograms of fentanyl, more than 840 grams of methamphetamine, and $38,000 in drug proceeds — all from the open-air drug markets that city leaders spent years pretending were just part of the local charm. United States Attorney Craig H. Missakian announced the results on June 5, 2026, and somewhere a progressive city councilmember is stress-eating organic kale chips.
Turns out when you actually enforce laws, crime goes down. Somebody write that on a whiteboard at San Francisco City Hall.
The operation ran from early October 2025 through the end of May 2026 and involved coordinated efforts between the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, the FBI, and the San Francisco Police Department. More than 40 of the 89 defendants were charged federally — meaning they're not getting a slap on the wrist from some local judge who thinks jail is a microaggression. They're going through the federal system, where consequences still exist.
Missakian laid it out plainly: "There are some problems that cannot be solved alone and this was one of them. San Francisco's open-air drug markets were rending the fabric of the city, but working together with our federal, state, and local partners we have made significant progress cleaning up the streets of our great city and we will continue this important work. We owe the people who live and work here nothing less."
FBI Special Agent in Charge Scott Schelble said every arrest and seizure "represents a meaningful step toward improving safety and well-being of San Francisco residents." SFPD Chief Derrick Lew added that "selling and using deadly narcotics in San Francisco will never be tolerated." Which is a great line, Chief, but we all watched your city tolerate exactly that for the better part of a decade.
Let's be honest about what happened here. San Francisco became the poster child for progressive criminal justice. They decriminalized. They de-prioritized. They turned entire neighborhoods into open-air fentanyl bazaars and called it compassion. People were shooting up on sidewalks in broad daylight while tourists stepped over bodies and city officials issued statements about "harm reduction" and "meeting people where they are."
Where they were was dying on the street. Over 2.2 kilograms of fentanyl seized — that's enough to kill hundreds of thousands of people. That poison was being sold openly because the message from local leadership for years was: we won't stop you.
The feds stopped them. Eighty-nine of them, to be exact.
This is what happens when adults take over. You don't need a revolutionary new theory of criminal justice. You don't need a task force to study the root causes of why someone is selling meth on Market Street. You need handcuffs, prosecutors, and the political will to use them.
As reported by 100 Percent Fed Up, San Francisco's experiment in letting drug dealers run the city is officially over. Eighty-nine down. The streets are a little cleaner. And law enforcement — the real kind, not the kind that hands out pamphlets — just reminded everyone how this is supposed to work.
