“Buy Bust” nets four

Three Sonoma men are in custody for methamphetamine and cocaine trafficking following a two-month, multi-agency sting operation that ended in a coordinated quartet of Sonoma Valley arrests Thursday afternoon.
“These weren’t really small-time people,” Det. Sgt. Glenn Lawrence of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department said Friday morning, noting that the operation also netted a pound each of cocaine and methamphetamine. “It’s a fairly significant bust for the Valley.”
Arrested and booked into Sonoma County Jail are Renato Humaran, 43, Jose Colin, 38, and Elias Avila, 39. Humaran and Colin were both booked on six counts apiece of possession for sale of cocaine and transportation for sale of narcotics.
Humaran was also booked for three counts of possession for sale of methamphetamine and two counts of transportation for sale of same, with Colin facing an additional four counts of possession for sale of methamphetamine and three counts of transportation for sale of same. Both men’s bail was set at $500,000.
Avila was booked on one count each of possession for sale of methamphetamine, for being a felon in possession of ammunition, and a violation of probation. He is being held without bail. Lawrence said a fourth man was also arrested, but described him as “collateral damage … he was just buying dope.”
The arrests were made at 1 p.m. Thursday in the parking lot of an El Verano apartment complex at the corner of Railroad Avenue and Oak Street. At the same time detectives were serving search warrants in the 19000 block of Railroad Avenue, 400 block of Jacey Street and 1200 block of Grove Street. Forty-four officers and nine agencies participated in the bust, including the sheriff’s SWAT team and helicopter “Henry-1,” Petaluma Police Department’s K-9 unit, and deputies from the Valley substation and the Sonoma Police Department.
Lawrence said the Marin County Sheriff’s Department Narcotics Task Force was involved in the investigation since it began in October. Over the next two months, undercover detectives arranged more than a half-dozen deals for a pound of cocaine and a half-pound of methamphetamine, and Lawrence said at least one suspect had no idea what was going on.
“During the actual buys that we did with this individual,” Lawrence said, “he would actually joke with our undercover officers about the cops being two blocks away at the substation.”