Phila. meth ring busted

Law enforcement agents today busted a Philadelphia drug ring that smuggled crystal methamphetamine manufactured in Mexico that was later hidden in porcelain dolls and dropped off at an Old City shoe store.

The ring trafficked $6.6 million of meth in Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery and Chester Counties, said Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett.

"This is a significant operation," Corbett said, noting that the organization is believed to have distributed more than 100 pounds of meth.

Thirteen people were arrested in connection with the drug trafficking operation, including a California woman who acted as a go-between.

The woman who allegedly was the Mexican source of the drugs was killed during the investigation.

Estela "Monica" Elenes was kidnapped the weekend of June 20 by four gunmen in the state of Sinaloa in western Mexico.

Elenes was later found decapitated with several gunshot wounds to her head.

Law enforcement officials believe she was one of 19 people murdered by drug cartels that weekend in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa.

After Congress in 2005 placed restrictions on the availability of the chemicals needed to make meth, cartels in places such as Mexico created "superlabs" to manufacture bulk amounts of the drug to be smuggled into the United States, said Timothy J. Ogden, special agent in charge for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's Philadelphia office.

The DEA, Philadelphia Police Department, and the Chester County district attorney and sheriff assisted the attorney general's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement in the investigation.

Code-named "Operation Broken Doll, the probe was launched in January and targeted Christopher McDaniel, 54, of the 800 block of South Second Street in Queen Village.

Flor Amaya, 31, of Chino, Calif., took payments from McDaniel and shipped meth she received from Mexico inside porcelain dolls to Philadelphia via commercial services such as UPS and FedEx.

The majority of shipments were sent to Ben's Shoes at 231 Market St., where they would be picked up by McDaniel's associates.

No one at the store has been charged, but the investigation is ongoing.

The charges recommended by a statewide investigating grand jury allege that McDaniel paid Elenes $22,000 a pound for the meth and then resold each pound for a $13,000 profit.

Each pound would later be diluted for street sales.

Among the individuals arrested today were James "Jimmy Nutt" Ballezzi, 46, of the 1300 block of Warnock Street, and Joseph "Kokomo Joe" Brabazon, 34, of the 8200 block of Frankford Avenue.

Two of the people arrested also were charged with trafficking anabolic steroids.