Enterprise concealed in suburbia Esteveses' had so much money they didn't know what to do with it

"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.