Operation Save Skid Row: 23 arrested in federal drug takedown in Los Angeles

Federal agents swept Skid Row on October 8 in an operation the Justice Department calls Operation Save Skid Row. Twenty three of twenty eight defendants were arrested on federal complaints charging fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking in downtown Los Angeles. Agents from DEA, FBI, ATF, LAPD and IRS criminal investigation searched twenty residences, most outside the neighborhood, plus drug tents inside it, seizing guns, drugs, bulk cash and luxury cars.

The complaints read like a case study in how drug markets work. Dealers dressed as homeless men or social workers. One lived in a downtown high rise and drove a Bentley to his tent. Hand to hand sales ran twenty and forty dollars, and prosecutors say some dealers took public assistance money as payment. Each man faces up to twenty years if convicted. The pattern underneath is the real story: public money in, poison out, while the city looked away.