Dealing as an uncover police officer and private investigator with those in the underworld of drug cartels who kill as part of their business plan is the basis for a new novel written by former Ceres Police Officer Randy Casaus.

Casaus left the Ceres Police Department in 2001 to work as a private eye and moved to Pacific Grove where he decided to try his hand at writing. Now 61, he is poised to release his novel, “The Taco Truck Informant,” on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kindle. The book is expected to sell for $19.95.

Pre-orders can be made at https://jrandallcasaus.com

He believes his book – which outlines how Mexican cartels moved into the Central Valley to control the narcotics trade – will interest those living in the Ceres/Modesto area or the region at large.

The book was inspired by years of journaling and the encouragement of people like former officer Al Neep to write a book.

“I thought, why not? I was a little bit hesitant. It’s been 20 years, really, in the making.”

Considered fiction because he takes some literary license and tells his story in the third person as “Frank,” Casaus’s work is based on his 10-year relationship with a confidential informant named Thomas Alvarado, who grew up in the “Labor Camp” across from Ceres High School, now in federal prison on drug and firearm convictions. He chose the book title based on meeting informant at taco trucks parked on Ninth Street in south Modesto.

Why would someone like Alvarado who is engaged in the drug trade cooperate as a confidential informant? According to Casaus, Alvarado had an ego and liked the control. He tipped off police to see dealers he didn’t like get arrested for sales.

As a detective, Casaus had to exercise dominance over his informant to keep him from going sideways. 

“I had to make myself a little bit crazier than him because we were in situations where we were buying meth, coke, black tar heroin.”

Once Alvarado threatened to kill Casaus but he sent a message to meet on Moore Road in Ceres to “step up” – while setting a trap for other officers to arrest him. Alvarado slipped away from Ceres Police because of the hesitation of one of the young officers. A car chase ensued and ended in a dusty orchard “and they never found him.”

Casaus was also able to keep tabs on Alvarado through his brothers since they didn’t like the unwanted attention paid by police to their Moore Road auto repair shop. Those brothers, said Casaus, were doing their own dirty deeds by retrofitting vehicles for hidden compartments to transport drugs.

“He was messing up their operation because there were times police were coming out there looking for him and they’d search the place for him.”

The brothers tipped off police that their brother may have killed a man on a canal bank over drugs.

“He’s very assuming but he was very connected. He started off actually manufacturing LSD here in Stanislaus County and then he got into the meth trade and then pretty soon he was an enforcer with the Nuestra Familia. I know personally that he was involved in three homicides, never been convicted of them.”

Casaus said Alvarado shared information about a Merced County murder involving two brothers killing their half-brother in Stevinson. Casaus shared what he learned with Larry Parsley and Vern Warnke of the Merced County Sheriff’s Department. Thomas knew too many details about the shooting to not by the trigger man, he said.

After he left law enforcement, Casaus ran into Alvarado and at his behest, asked him to confess to his involvement. He admitted the brothers paid him $1,600 upfront to exact the hit on the victim and $1,600 once the job was done. Alvarado never faced charges, said Casaus, because a Merced County “flubbed” the investigation. As an example, the victim’s wife and daughter who witnessed the murder picked Alvarado out of a photo lineup, said Casaus, but the detective failed to admonish the witnesses that the suspect may or may not be in the “six pack.”

Fearful for their own safety, the victim’s family decided they didn’t “want to be any part of” prosecuting Alvarado considering how the department likely would not gain a conviction.

Casaus was asked to be wired and speak to Alvarado again about the murder but he knew Thomas would smell a setup. To this day, however, Casaus has no doubts as to Alvarado’s guilt in the murder.

“There was a description and all that but one of the things I noticed, too, was that the vehicle fleeing the scene was the same vehicle I knew him to drive.”

While the book spends a lot of time on Alvarado, Casaus writes about experiences as an undercover narcotics officer.

One story involved him securing a “drop calf” to trade for meth outside of Newman in an undercover sting.

“As I entered private investigative work I was also a drug expert so I ended up testifying against cartels on defense cases a number of times. I’d go down to LA and San Diego and that was a little bit scary because you’re going against the cartels in a sense and you weren’t working for law enforcement.”

In those defense cases he testified how cartels were colluding with corrupt Mexican auto dealers to get keys to cars to plant drugs in the trunks of unsuspecting drivers’ regularly crossing the southern border using the Fast Pass or Ready Lane.

He also helped in the defense of some young men arrested while unwittingly offloading narcotics from boats when they were told the product was frozen shrimp.

“We were able to get a couple of those guys off.”

Casaus got involved in working on human trafficking investigations 15 years ago.

“Right now I’m trying to steer away from that,” said Casaus. “I’m getting to the end of my career. I don’t want to be walking the streets of the Tenderloin or Hunter’s Point and Oakland anymore … pretty scary at times. I’ve had a few incidences where I’ve been put in jeopardy.”

Family members have hired him as a PI and so has Special Operations Finding Kids (www.findingkids.org) and Operation Underground Railroad.

Casaus, who grew up in Modesto, became a reserve officer in Escalon in 1983 and was hired by Ceres Police in October 1984. He worked patrol and was the department’s first DARE officer. At one time he was president of the California DARE Officers Association and worked also as a property crimes investigator.

The former officer turned writer still maintains some contacts with the Ceres Police Department which he left on bad terms. Casaus, who was president of the Ceres Police Officers Association, explained that he fell out of favor with Commander John Chapman when he went to bat for Jared Puryear after a serious injury that would eventually led to his premature death. Casaus pushed the department to get a companion officer program going – something that did not go well with officials. But it was a loss of hearing in an ear that prompted Chief Art deWerk to push him into a code enforcement job – and right out the door.