OAKLAND — He started selling fentanyl on Bay Area streets as a boy.
By age 18, prosecutors say he was directing a multi-state ring that stockpiled the deadly powder by the kilogram, sold ounces of it at at a time, and had ongoing plans to obtain more from the Cartel Jalisco New Generation in Mexico. Now, because of all this, 19-year-old Eldin Miralda Cruz will spend the remainder of his teens and part of his 20s in federal prison.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar sentenced Miralda Cruz was to four years in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, a federal offense that likely would have resulted in a higher prison term if not for his young age, according to court records. Prosecutors describe Miralda Cruz as “a hard-working, independent, and entrepreneurial young drug dealer,” who made hundreds of “pertinent” calls during a DEA wiretap investigation, negotiating not just drug deals in Oakland but Portland, Oregon, agents reportedly overheard him bossing around men in their 20s.
But could all of this been motivated by a personal tragedy? That’s what Miralda Cruz’s defense team has argued. They say that after making the dangerous trip, alone, from Honduras to the Bay Area, enrolling at International High School in Oakland, and taking a job at a packaging plant in Hayward, Miralda Cruz got word that his grandma was sick with cancer. That changed everything, a defense sentencing memo says.
“With little income coming in, he learned that his grandmother in Honduras had been diagnosed with cancer and needed help to pay for her treatment. Only 16 years old and struggling to find money, he turned to selling drugs,” his attorneys wrote in court filings. “It was a terrible decision that Mr. Miralda Cruz regrets immensely—he knows now that there was no excuse for the choice he made.”
Miralda Cruz was charged as part of a large scale DEA investigation that branched into two cases. One charging him in the Bay Area, another charging a family member named Melvin “Tito” Miralda Cruz in Portland. A raid of Melvin Miralda Cruz’s Portland stash house yielded 7.4 pounds of fentanyl powder as well as “over $100,000 in cash, multiple containers of a fentanyl cutting agent (Mannitol), and fentanyl processing equipment,” prosecutors said in court filings.
The wiretap call allegedly demonstrated Eldin had directed Melvin “and others to conduct dozens, if not over a hundred, drug deals” Oregon. Eldin also sold drugs to an undercover DEA agent five times in 2023 and 2024, including one $1,200 deal for five ounces, authorities said in court filings.
“In these communications, Mr. (Eldin) Miralda Cruz and Tito also discussed that one of their fentanyl sources was the Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG), which is a cartel that is a major distributor of fentanyl and other controlled substances from Mexico into the western United States,” prosecutors said in court filings, later stating that Eldin Miralda Cruz was “no pawn, but instead directed co-conspirators who were older than him.”
The case against Melvin Miralda Cruz and his co-defendant, Pablo Marin Aguilera, is still pending.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys both agreed on the four-year prison term, with U.S. Attorneys acknowledging he’d have faced 70 to 87 months behind bars if not for his young age. The four-year sentence, prosecutors argued, struck a balance between the need for deterrence and message to other drug dealers that “while their youth will be a consideration, it will not be tantamount to a get-of-jail free card that absolves them of responsibility for their actions.”
After prison, Eldin Miralda Cruz will be deported back to Honduras, his attorneys said in court filings, quoting his own desire to “do things the right way.”
“Mr. Miralda-Cruz has no intention of returning to the country and reoffending. Though his childhood was challenging, he enjoys a supportive relationship with his parents, with whom he will be reunited when he returns to Honduras,” the defense sentencing memo says. “He also has plans for employment upon his return: He will work on his family’s farm and sell produce at his grandfather’s fruit stand.”