Four years in prison for Bay Area man who was building mansion from Tenderloin fentanyl sales

Emilson “Playboy” Cruz-Mayorquin, 24, was sentenced to four years and three months in federal prison for allegedly helping run a drug trafficking ring that sold fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine.

SAN FRANCISCO — A 24-year-old man was sentenced to four years and three months in federal prison for helping operate a large-scale drug trafficking ring that distributed fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood, court records show.

Emilson “Playboy” Cruz-Mayorquin, of Oakland, was sentenced earlier this month by U.S. District Judge William Alsup, four months after Cruz-Mayorquin pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute fentanyl. He was the lead defendant in an eight-person 2020 indictment targeting an alleged drug trafficking ring that included several members of the same family, including Cruz-Mayorquin’s mother.

The case was part of the so-called Federal Initiative in the Tenderloin, or FIT, an effort led by the Trump justice department to charge San Francisco drug traffickers with federal offenses. The charges against the other seven defendants are still pending.

Cruz-Mayorquin was using the proceeds of fentanyl sales to construct a mansion in Honduras, according to federal prosecutors who included photos of the construction in a sentencing memorandum. The pictures depict marbled bathroom walls, and an outdoor area with extravagant Roman pillars. In the memo, prosecutors said Cruz-Mayorquin quickly climbed the supply chain of the drug ring, starting as a low-level dealer who at the time of his arrest was distributing to middlemen.

“He was no small-time drug dealer, but rather made a significant amount of money. Cruz-Mayorquin may be a young man, but he learned quickly how to succeed in the drug game,” assistant U.S. Attorney Sailaja Paidpaty wrote in the memo.

In a sentencing memo, Cruz-Mayorquin’s attorney, assistant public defender Elisse LaRouche, wrote that Cruz-Mayorquin came to the United States from Honduras at a young age, in search of his mother, Leydis Yaneth Cruz. He quickly got swept up in the world of drug trafficking, which became “normalized” for him, she wrote.

“Emilson Cruz Mayorquin found his mother, but arriving in the U.S. at an impressionable age, he was lured by bad influences and without his mother’s ability or willingness to provide parental guidance, he became involved in drugs,” LaRouche wrote. “No one financially supported him and friends taught him to survive by selling drugs. As a teenager, his years were spent between ICE juvenile detention centers, the streets, with friends, and sometimes, time with his mom.”

After his sentence, Cruz-Mayorquin will face the “ultimate punishment of banishment” through deportation, LaRouche wrote. She said he plans to leave drug trafficking behind and work for his uncle as a roofer.