Giant meth ring busted

THE PORCELAIN dolls arrived by mail, carefully packaged and left for pickup at an Old City shoe store.

But Christopher McDaniel was no doll collector.

Rather, the burly 54-year-old regularly took the dolls from the store to his Queen Village home, where he smashed them to bits for the treasure inside: millions of dollars worth of crystal methamphetamines smuggled from Mexico, police said.

Authorities yesterday arrested Mc-Daniel and 12 others for allegedly running a drug ring they say smuggled at least $6.6 million worth of crystal meth into Philadelphia that dealers then sold to thousands of users in Philadelphia and Bucks, Chester and Montgomery counties.

Dubbed "Operation Broken Doll," the investigation has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster: Mob connections, a beheading and bad guys with nicknames like "Jimmy Nutt" and "Kokomo Joe."

Philadelphia authorities began monitoring McDaniel in January after learning that he sold crystal meth regionally, state Attorney General Tom Corbett said.

After a series of controlled buys, they set up court-approved wiretaps to learn the scope of his operation and help identify his suppliers, Corbett said

Within a few months, investigators determined that McDaniel was getting his shipments from Estela "Monica" Elenes, a supplier based in Culiacan, Mexico. She mailed pound packages, sealed inside the gaudy, oversized porcelain dolls, to Ben's Shoes on Market Street near 2nd, where McDaniel would pick them up, Corbett said.

Authorities are still investigating what role employees of Ben's Shoes may have had in the operation. McDaniel did not own or work at the store, and authorities are unsure of his connection to it. No one connected to the store has been charged.

The shop apparently has gone out of business since the probe. A "For Rent" sign hung in the narrow storefront's picture window yesterday beside a padlocked door.

McDaniel received at least seven one-pound shipments from Elenes; he paid her $22,000 per pound and netted a $13,000-per-pound profit, Corbett said. After diluting the drug, the operation distributed at least 100 pounds of crystal meth, valued at more than $6.6 million, to users on the street, Corbett said.

Flor Amaya, 31, of Chino, Calif., acted as a go-between, getting the meth from Mexico and then packaging and mailing it to Philadelphia, Corbett said.

In an April raid, investigators found five demolished dolls inside McDaniel's home on 2nd Street near Queen and another two dolls, with pound packages of meth still sealed in their backs, just outside his home, Corbett said.

As a grand jury pondered the case over the summer, investigators learned of one major development: Four armed men kidnapped Elenes on June 20 in Mexico and blasted her repeatedly in the head with high-powered guns, decapitating her.

Her body was found near a burned-out SUV that her still-unidentified abductors used to seize her. She was one of 19 people murdered by Mexican drug cartels in Culiacan that weekend, and local authorities believe that her slaying was in part retaliatory for her role as a Philadelphia supplier.

Yesterday, local drug fighters trumpeted the bust as a major victory against local meth distribution, which has gone international in recent years.

"Historically, it was local mom-and-pop, clandestine labs producing ounce quantities, small quantities, of crystal meth," said Timothy Ogden, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Philadelphia field division. "But the meth business has evolved and changed. Federal legislation [passed in 2005] has controlled the precursor chemicals and changed the dynamic of where [meth] comes from. The Mexican cartels have stepped up to fill that void."

Besides McDaniel and Amaya, the other suspects arrested were: Charles "Chaz" Iannece, 50, of 2nd Street near Kenilworth in Queen Village; Joseph "Kokomo Joe" Brabazon, 34, of Frankford Avenue near Stanwood Street in Holmesburg; James "Jimmy Nutt" Ballezzi, 46, of Warnock Street near Wharton in South Philadelphia; Joseph Scavetti, 29, of 10th Street near Moyamensing in South Philadelphia; Frank Piccolo, 27, of 2nd Street near Shunk in South Philadelphia; Kenneth Baker, 57, of Upper Darby; Michael McElroy, 30, of Southampton, Bucks County; Lenora Trombley, 21, of Glenmoore, Chester County; Nicholas Miller, 25, of Downingtown; Charles Blosenski Jr., 43, of Elverson, Chester County, and Gabriel Blackstone, 34, of Clementon, N.J.

Iannece, who is charged with possession with intent to deliver and with related offenses, is the son of jailed mob soldier Charles "Charlie White" Iannece, a killer who specialized in extortions and the meth business in the Nicodemo Scarfo mob in the 1980s.

In 1989, the younger Iannece drew the attention of authorities because he had delivered a controversial kiss on the cheek to Scarfo's son, Nicodemo, shortly before a gunman in a Halloween mask shot Scarfo Jr. five times on Oct. 31 in a South Philadelphia restaurant. He survived the attack. *