City drug raid busts big meth smuggling ring

Law enforcement agents said yesterday that they had broken up a Philadelphia drug ring that had smuggled crystal methamphetamine manufactured in Mexico into the city. The drug was apparently hidden in porcelain dolls and dropped off at an Old City shoe store.

The ring trafficked $6.6 million of the drug 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 operation, including a California woman who is said to have 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. She was later found decapitated with several gunshot wounds to her head.

Law enforcement officials say 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, the 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, officials said.

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

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

The statewide investigating grand jury alleged 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.

Arrested in addition to McDaniel were James Ballezzi, 46; Joseph Brabazon, 34; Joseph Scavetti, 29; Charles Iannece, 50; and Frank Piccolo, 27, all of Philadelphia, as well as Michael McElroy, 30, of Southampton; Lenora Trombley, 21, of Glenmoore; Nicholas Miller, 25, of Downingtown; Charles Blosenski Jr., 43, of Elverson; Kenneth Baker, 57, of Upper Darby; and Gabriel Blackstone, 34, of Clementon. Blackstone and Piccolo also were charged with trafficking in anabolic steroids.