Twice-bailed Honduran with 15 years’ San Francisco drug dealing under his belt back in court after three years on the lam
A Honduran arrested for fentanyl dealing in San Francisco in 2023 while a fugitive in another drugs case, then arrested again for drug dealing after being freed by a city judge, who was then given bail by a federal judge, which he then skipped, returned to court today after Immigration and Customs Enforcement nabbed him in Oakland after three years on the lam.
Prosecutors say Selvin Alvarez, 35, was spied by SFPD officers selling drugs at the corner of Ellis and Hyde Streets in the Tenderloin on the afternoon of February 5 2023.
When arrested, police found more than a kilo of packaged fentanyl and other drugs in a bag slung over the wheelchair of a man being used as a mule.
Two days later he was released by Judge Victor Hwang and, according to court documents, simply continued selling fentanyl to all comers including, as it turned out, SFPD undercover officers.
On March 21 2023 he organized the sale of 35g of fentanyl for $200 to an officer. And on April 4 he personally sold nearly 100g of fentanyl to the same undercover officer for $600.
In between those two dates Alvarez was granted ‘primary caregiver diversion’ in his San Francisco state case. His public defender told the court that he had two U.S. citizen children aged 5 and 10.
SFPD Officer James Puccinelli, who is also a ‘task force officer’ of the Drug Enforcement Administration, obtained a federal arrest warrant in May 2023 based on the sting operation.
“[D]efendant faces a severe penalty, which creates a strong incentive for defendant to flee immediately if released,” wrote assistant U.S. attorney Michael Lagrama in a June 2023 motion to detain – presciently, as it turned out, as that is exactly what Alvarez did when given the opportunity.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim released Alvarez to home detention, which she relaxed two and a half months later, replacing it with a nighttime curfew. By the end of October he was in the wind.
By late August 2026, court records show, Alvarez was detained again. ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division later claimed responsibility for his detention in a social media post.
He is presently being held at San Francisco Jail on behalf of U.S. Marshals.
“I believe I last saw Mr Alvarez in 2023,” observed U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in a brief hearing this morning in courtroom 8 of San Francisco federal courthouse.
She heard that plea discussions would take place between prosecution and defense and ordered Alvarez to return to court on December 2.
The court was earlier told that Alvarez has more than 15 years’ San Francisco drug dealing under his belt, having racked up his first conviction in 2010 for which he received, in harsher times, 37 days in jail.
He absconded from a 2020 state criminal case for drug dealing after he claimed his mother became unwell and he cared for her “out of the area.”
Just before his federal arrest in 2023, and while prosecutors say he was selling industrial quantities of fentanyl, he enterprisingly applied to seal his case records. Judge Marisa Chun refused to do so.
Alvarez has pleaded not guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and two counts of distributing fentanyl.
The case continues.
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