Drug Enforcement Administration

YOU WANT to use the word "surreal" to describe the teen girl's night-from-hell drama "Miss Bala," but this slice of life on the Mexican border is all too real. The annual death total from that country's drug war surpassed 12,000 people last year, an international disgrace that gets confoundingly little coverage in the media, mainstream or otherwise. "Miss Bala" puts you at Ground Zero, Tijuana, where pageant hopeful Laura (Stephanie Sigmund) and her friend decide to enter a beauty contest.

Federal drug agents have begun a preliminary investigation of bad-boy radio personality Howard Stern because of on-air statements he made about providing drugs to a guest on a recent cable-TV special. The investigation came to light in a letter to the editor written and delivered to the Daily News late yesterday by Michael Levine, a supervising Drug Enforcement Administration agent. Appealing for witnesses to come forward, Levine said Stern "bragged openly" Monday of "getting drugs" for a performer on the TV special, which was broadcast Feb. 27 under the title "Howard Stern's Underpants and Negligee Party.

Agents for the Drug Enforcement Administration, assisted by local police, have arrested three men in connection with a shipment of 440 pounds of cocaine wrapped in Easter-basket cellophane and destined for Philadelphia, authorities said yesterday. The cocaine, hidden in a utility trailer, was seized Thursday in Salina, Kan., and its courier was arrested. A fifth suspect was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, for his role in the shipment. On Friday, DEA agents learned who was to receive the shipment, arranged a delivery to two of the men at a Bensalem hotel, and arrested them.

Federal drug enforcement officials have seized $1.57 million from an Abington home and arrested a Warminster man on multiple drug charges. Anthony Kotycienski of the 1100 block of Charter Road, Warminster, was arrested Tuesday at Michael's Pharmacy in North Philadelphia, where he was employed as manager, according to a spokesman from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Kotycienski was arrested about 11 a.m. and charged with multiple drug sales. DEA officials declined to give details that led to the arrest and would not say what types of drugs the defendant is being charged with selling.

Five men have been arrested in North Philadelphia and charged with attempting to sell cocaine with a street value of $400,000 to undercover police and federal agents, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said yesterday. Officers seized two kilograms of cocaine, a 1987 Corvette, a .38-caliber pistol and $2,163 in cash in connection with the arrests, which were made on Monday, said Bud Eckert, public information officer for the DEA. Eckert said DEA agents and Philadelphia police assigned to a joint drug enforcement task force negotiated to buy two kilos of cocaine from the suspects for $57,000 in the vicinity of Fourth Street and Indiana Avenue on Monday.

A Montgomery County man was arrested on drug charges after he picked up a shipment of plywood imported from Ghana in which $3.6 million worth of marijuana was hidden, the Drug Enforcement Administration said yesterday. Allan Charles Kane, 34, of the 1400 block of Mellon Street, Wyncote, was charged Tuesday with conspiracy to import a controlled substance and possession and distribution of a controlled substance, David Wood, the DEA's acting special agent, said. According to DEA officials, the U.S. Customs Service discovered 9,000 pounds of marijuana hidden in a shipment of plywood that arrived at the Port of Philadelphia on June 26. Kane and a second suspect picked up the shipment on July 1 in a rental truck, and authorities followed the pair to a ranch in Kintnersville, Bucks County.

A Center City physician was arrested at his office Wednesday night by federal drug enforcement officers and charged with illegally dispensing prescriptions for controlled substances, authorities said yesterday. Hiroshi Suzuki, 58, wrote prescriptions for drugs that included codeine- based cough syrups, barbiturates and sedatives and sold the prescriptions to a federal informant for prices ranging from $10 to $60 per prescription, according to Stephen Griswold, an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Law enforcement will collect two kinds of dangerous items on Saturday: guns and prescription drugs. "Turn in a gun anonymously and receive a $50 food voucher for a local supermarket on the spot, no questions asked!" declares a Philadelphia Police Department announcement. The firearms buyback will be held from 10 a.m. to noon at St. Joachim's Church Hall, 1527 Church Street, in Northeast Philadelphia. The Knorr Street Shop-Rite is sponsoring the event, along with the Philadelphia Police District Advisory Council.

The two federal officials who ran the Philadelphia phase of the massive crackdown last month on a heroin distribution ring that stretched from Colombia to New York have been honored by the Colombian government. Felix J. Jimenez, former special agent in charge of the Philadelphia office of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and DEA group supervisor Mary Irene Cooper, who supervised the investigation, traveled to Bogota recently to receive the Colombian National Police Commendation Award.

Suspected South Philadelphia drug dealer Nicholas Volpe may be a family man with a young daughter, but that, federal authorities said yesterday, is no reason why he should be freed on bail. "In many instances, having a family is a factor that tends to favor bail, because one's family may operate as a check on one's criminal tendencies," said Assistant U.S. Attorney David E. Fritchey in papers opposing bail for Volpe, 33, who is accused of trafficking cocaine. But in this case, Fritchey noted, a cooperating witness recorded a meeting in the kitchen of Volpe's home in the 1000 block of Cross Street at which "Volpe is captured on tape demonstrating how to rerock [dilute]

Law enforcement will collect two kinds of dangerous items on Saturday: guns and prescription drugs. "Turn in a gun anonymously and receive a $50 food voucher for a local supermarket on the spot, no questions asked!" declares a Philadelphia Police Department announcement. The firearms buyback will be held from 10 a.m. to noon at St. Joachim's Church Hall, 1527 Church Street, in Northeast Philadelphia. The Knorr Street Shop-Rite is sponsoring the event, along with the Philadelphia Police District Advisory Council.

YOU WANT to use the word "surreal" to describe the teen girl's night-from-hell drama "Miss Bala," but this slice of life on the Mexican border is all too real. The annual death total from that country's drug war surpassed 12,000 people last year, an international disgrace that gets confoundingly little coverage in the media, mainstream or otherwise. "Miss Bala" puts you at Ground Zero, Tijuana, where pageant hopeful Laura (Stephanie Sigmund) and her friend decide to enter a beauty contest.

When an undercover agent for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that three Philadelphia police officers allegedly planned to steal heroin from a North Philadelphia dealer, he had only scant information about them. Members of the Police Department's Internal Affairs Division gradually uncovered their identities, Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said, after the DEA came to the police with what it knew. "This came about as a result of good work between these agencies," Ramsey said Wednesday.

One June day in 1988, customs agents at the Frankfurt, Germany, airport pulled aside an intense and striking young man waiting to get on a plane back home to Philadelphia. They suspected he had heroin in his suitcase. They were right - two kilos' worth from Pakistan, hidden under a false bottom. He wasn't tough to crack: Before the day was out, Daood "David" Gilani decided to save his own skin, agreeing to betray his drug-dealing partners by helping U.S. drug agents set up a sting.

SOUNDS like something Osama might actually do. His people in Colombia would cop a few tons of cocaine, lace it with poison and resell it in the United States, killing tens of thousands of Americans one snort at a time. This, according to an "exclusive" front-page report in the New York Post yesterday, was the gist of a plot the Drug Enforcement Administration turned up this year. Fiendishly clever yet elegant in its simplicity, it sounds like a plan Osama's occasional allies in the South American cocaine cartels would leap at. After all, you don't rise to the lofty level of drug lord by passing up a chance to bundle a few tons of your overstock for quick sale.

Craig Oliver, a drug dealer cooperating with authorities against a major North Philadelphia narcotics ring, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and money-laundering charges yesterday in a bid to avoid a possible life sentence for his own crimes. The 34-year-old former Germantown resident amassed piles of cash and a fleet of fancy vehicles during his brief but highly lucrative run as a cocaine dealer, according to court documents. But a sting operation by undercover operatives with the Drug Enforcement Administration last year led to his arrest and his quick decision to tell all. Oliver, dressed in an olive prison jumpsuit, entered his plea during a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Jan E. DuBois late yesterday afternoon.

Administrator Asa Hutchinson of the Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed yesterday that agents in the DEA's San Juan office had claimed credit for hundreds of arrests in which they had played no role, and he called their actions "wrong and irresponsible. " He also confirmed that several DEA agents had been disciplined in the miscounting. "There is absolutely no excuse for that kind of reporting," he said of the inflated statistics. Citing privacy concerns, Hutchinson declined to spell out disciplinary action against the agents, except to say that it ranged from a 14-day suspension to a letter of reprimand.

The war against terrorism is diverting federal agents, patrol boats, and other resources from the war on drugs, the nation's chief drug officer said yesterday. "It's a battle of resources right now," said Asa Hutchinson, chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration. It's particularly an issue for the Coast Guard and the FBI, he said. "When the dust settles, there will be discussions. " The FBI has yanked agents off drug cases for counterterrorism duty, Hutchinson said, and Coast Guard cutters that once were dedicated to patrolling for drug shipments now watch over vulnerable seaports.

Carol Nickels suggests "rescuing the Social Security system" by ending the cost-of-living adjustments (Letters, Aug. 10). This would be far more effective than Nickels imagines. In addition to the immediate savings effected by eliminating this "enormous amount to the monthly checks people receive," we would soon begin realizing an even greater secondary benefit. Those who are barely making it on their Social Security income would soon find it impossible to keep up with the rising costs of food, medicine, etc. and would then disappear from the Social Security rolls entirely.

Agents for the Drug Enforcement Administration, assisted by local police, have arrested three men in connection with a shipment of 440 pounds of cocaine wrapped in Easter-basket cellophane and destined for Philadelphia, authorities said yesterday. The cocaine, hidden in a utility trailer, was seized Thursday in Salina, Kan., and its courier was arrested. A fifth suspect was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, for his role in the shipment. On Friday, DEA agents learned who was to receive the shipment, arranged a delivery to two of the men at a Bensalem hotel, and arrested them.