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A Villanova man was sentenced Tuesday to five years in prison for drug trafficking and money laundering in what U.S. Homeland Security agents said was one of the region's largest cash busts.
Ronald Belciano, 42, pleaded guilty in February in federal court in Harrisburg to leading a distribution ring that brought hundreds of pounds of marijuana from Northern California to Pennsylvania from 2007 to 2011, and laundering the profits to conceal the illegal operation.
Federal agents seized more than $4 million in cash; Belciano's Villanova home; 190 acres of land in Mendocino County, Calif., from which he exported the drugs; and an estimated $620,000 worth of artwork, including some by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí.
Biran Michael, the assistant special agent in charge who supervised for Homeland Security Investigations, said it "was easily one of the largest cash seizures ever in Philly. More than I've seen in 25 years in law enforcement."
After losing his home on the 1800 block of West Montgomery Avenue in the bust, Belciano evidently moved to Newtown Square.
The investigation, which was sealed until Belciano's sentencing Tuesday, was led by Homeland Security but included local and state police and other federal agencies.
The busts began in 2011, when investigators outside Harrisburg intercepted a car rented by Belciano. They found nearly $1.2 million stuffed into the doors and concealed in household items such as Crock-Pots and stereo speakers.
Searching Belciano's Villanova home, they found $2.6 million more, "much of which was artfully concealed in a fish tank," Michael said.
Stephen Patrizio, Belciano's attorney, called the five-year imprisonment "a very fair sentence" and said that since his arrest in 2011, Belciano "has turned his whole life around."
At least five others have been charged as a result of the investigation, Michael said.
Stephen Fanfera, who allegedly ran a storehouse for Belciano in Douglassville, is scheduled for sentencing Thursday.
Nathan Isen, 61, an art dealer from Villanova, was charged with knowingly accepting illicit money, and is scheduled for a plea hearing Friday.
Isen was the owner of the I. Brewster & Co. Gallery on Philadelphia's Museum Row and is known as an authority on the French artist Louis Icart. A representative for the Brewster Gallery said Wednesday that Isen had resigned.
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