Pubdate: Mon, 07 Jul 2008
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2008 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Author: George Anastasia

DRUG KINGPINS CASHING IN ON SUBURBS' SPOILS

The Comfort And Security Of Affluent Areas Are Selling Points For 
Criminals, Officials Say.

They were living the American dream.

A lavish home in the suburbs. Fine clothes and jewelry. Expensive 
cars. All financed, if federal investigators are correct, with narco dollars.

While the description was applied most recently to the lifestyle of 
Vicente and Chantal Esteves, a young couple arrested on charges of 
running an international cocaine distribution network from their home 
in Monmouth County, it could apply to a number of convicted or 
suspected drug kingpins whose cases have surfaced in the last two years.

They live in comfortable, upper-middle-class communities where BMWs 
are commonplace, swimming pools dot many backyards, and the school 
system is top-notch.

And they accumulate the kind of luxury items - authorities found 
nearly 100 Rolex watches and 100 pairs of Prada shoes in the Esteves 
residence - that separate the really wealthy from the merely well-to-do.

"It was an enterprise concealed in suburbia," said DEA Agent Douglas 
S. Collier, spokesman for the agency's Newark office that worked the 
Esteves case. "They had so much money they didn't know what to do with it."

While several neighbors, who would only speak anonymously, said last 
week that they wondered about the Esteveses' ostentatious lifestyle, 
narcotics investigators say it fits a pattern.

Drug kingpins, they say, move to the suburbs for the same reasons as 
anyone else - for comfort and security. And, like other goal-oriented 
entrepreneurs, many flaunt their success.

"It's about the money and living the lavish lifestyle," said FBI 
Agent John M. Cosenza, who supervises a drug task force out of 
Philadelphia. "We're seeing more and more moves out to the suburbs."

"They move to an affluent community because they want a nice home and 
better schools for their children," said Jeremiah A. Daley, executive 
director of the Philadelphia-Camden office of the federally funded 
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program.

Another factor, he said, is safety.

Living in the suburbs usually removes a kingpin - and his family - 
from the violent world of drug dealing and competitors who often use 
guns to settle disputes. "They move away from the field of fire, so 
to speak," Daley said.

Vicente Esteves, 35, and his wife, Chantal, 30, were living in a 
spacious new house on Taylors Mills Road in Manalapan when they were arrested.

Gerald McAleer, who heads the DEA's New Jersey office, compared the 
5,000-square-foot residence - with its dance floor and DJ booth, 
weight room, game room and home theater with stadium seating - to 
"something out of the movie Scarface."

Alton "Ace Capone" Coles, convicted this year of using his Southwest 
Philadelphia hip-hop record company as a front for a $25 million 
crack cocaine operation, was arrested shortly after moving into a 
$500,000 home he had built outside Mullica Hill in Gloucester County. 
In the garage was his $250,000 Bentley.

Ricardo McKendrick Jr., part of an alleged father-son team that has 
been described as a major source of cocaine to Philadelphia drug 
dealers, lives in an upper-middle-class development in Woodstown, 
Salem County. The night of his arrest, police found nearly $1 million 
in cash in the trunk of his Mercedes, parked in the driveway.

The home is on Rockwell Lane between Kingsberry and Queensberry 
Lanes, around the corner from the posh Town and Country Golf Links 
country club, where an annual membership is $1,750.

"It's a long way from 25th and Federal," said Daley, referring to the 
South Philadelphia neighborhood where McKendrick's father lives in a 
rowhouse and where, that same night, authorities found 274 kilograms 
of cocaine. The drugs, in brick form and ready for distribution, had 
a street value of about $28 million, police said.

The McKendricks, arrested on April 1, are awaiting trial.

Benjamin Ton, who pleaded guilty last year to heading a $50 million 
marijuana and ecstasy distribution network tied to Canadian-based 
Vietnamese drug dealers, was living in a spacious home in the 
Cobblestone Farms section of Sicklerville, Camden County, when he was 
arrested three years ago. Outside were a Corvette, a BMW and a Lexus.

Not bad for a 30-year-old who, two years earlier, lived in Folcroft 
and worked as a copy machine repairman.

"There has been a perception in the past that law enforcement wasn't 
looking out there," Daley said of suspected drug dealers' rationale 
for moving to the suburbs, and even to some exurbs.

But case after case developed by HIDTA investigations, he said, has 
led authorities to enclaves in Chester and Delaware Counties, in 
South Jersey and in New Castle County in Delaware.

Coles, the Southwest Philadelphia kingpin, lived in a posh townhouse 
in Newark, Del., before relocating to South Jersey.

Convicted with five associates in March, he faces a potential life 
sentence. A codefendant, girlfriend Asya Richardson, lived with him 
in Gloucester County at the time of their arrests. They moved there 
10 days before the DEA swooped in.

Richardson, 28, faces a possible 10-year sentence on money-laundering 
charges. According to evidence introduced during the trial, she was a 
relatively minor player in the drug ring.

On wiretapped conversations that were part of the investigation, 
Richardson was repeatedly heard discussing plans for the house that 
was being built, the draperies she wanted to install, and the 
shrubbery she hoped to plant.

Wiretaps also figure to be a part of the Esteves case, now before a grand jury.

Peter Warshaw, first assistant Monmouth County prosecutor, declined 
to comment on the investigation.

At a news conference about the arrests, authorities alleged that 
Vicente Esteves was leader of a smuggling operation that imported 
more than a ton of cocaine a month from Mexico and Colombia.

They charged that the operation generated about $1 million a week for 
the organization, cash that Esteves turned into his version of the good life.

His home, built on a corner lot in an upper-middle-class 
neighborhood, is assessed at about $1.7 million. Its market value may 
be millions more.

When police raided the residence they seized over a million dollars' 
worth of jewelry, including the Rolex watches, stored in one of the 
many walk-in closets.

In another closet, authorities found Chantal Esteves' Prada shoes, 
many with photos taped to the boxes so, investigators believe, she 
could keep track of her footwear.

There were a dozen plasma TVs in the two-story home, a pool and 
cabana, and patio furniture that still had $1,000 price tags attached.

The neatly groomed grounds were lined with arborvitae trees that 
provided a measure of privacy. The entrance to the property was 
barred by an eight-foot-high iron gate and a plaque that warned 
"Entire Site Protected by Video Surveillance."

"They were a young couple, and I said to my wife, 'How are they 
making it?' " said one of several neighbors who asked to remain anonymous.

"People get greedy and don't know what to do with their money," he 
said as he stood in front of his ranch-style home down the block from 
the Esteves residence. "But it catches up with you. . . . You don't 
put a house like that on the corner so that everybody can look at you."

Across Taylors Mills Road at the Carchesio Farms nursery, a clerk who 
also didn't want to give her name said the arrests have been the talk 
of the town. The clerk said she always wondered about the couple.

"There was something funky," she said. "They planted trees at the 
wrong time of the year, and when they died, they just planted more. 
It was like they couldn't care less.

"They put in these expensive pavers all over the property, walkways 
that led nowhere. What was that about?"

And, finally, she said, there were the linens.

After the arrest, customers said that Chantal Esteves had a running 
tab at a local, high-end linen shop where she spent about $6,000 a 
month on items she had delivered.

"How many freakin' sets of towels do you need?" the clerk asked.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom