The Ecstasy and the Agony: Drug-Runners Screw Up in Queens

In a nice switch, some foolishly enterprising residents of the eternally square borough of Queens not long ago decided to become major suppliers of ecstasy to New York City hipsters. Now?facing some serious jail time?they're probably wishing they'd left the whole thing to the desperate drug mules and pink-haired college kids.

This is how it went down. On March 26 a suspicious 6-pound package arrived at JFK from Greece. It was addressed to a Queens resident. Postal inspectors examined the parcel and found two hollowed-out dictionaries filled with ecstasy pills, with a street value of $500,000. The NYPD and the postal inspectors combined their forces and, on the morning of March 27, an inspector disguised as a mailman delivered the package to the intended address?a three-story brick house out in the section of Queens known as College Point?a small and forgotten district full of factories, no-name bars, generic delis, chop shops and small homes. The place is so nondescript, you'd imagine it would be a perfect place for an ecstasy ring to flourish.

According to the Queens County indictment, the package was addressed to someone named Eleum Kapbela. The postal inspector knocked on the door and John DiGenaks, 30, answered. He claimed he was the elusive Kapbela but, like a true Queens knucklehead, he signed his own name for the package. The cops waited outside, and half an hour later DiGenaks left the house. He was nabbed while getting into a call-service cab. The police found 100 Percocet pills and more than $6000 in cash on him.

Next, the task force reassembled and entered the home with a search warrant. They found and arrested George Apessos, 20, a resident of the College Point house, and Peter Krzeszowiac, 41, who claimed he lives in Beverly Hills. How a Beverly Hills resident wound up in the ass end of Queens remains a mystery, as Krzeszowiac has been unavailable for comment. Along with the half-mil stash of ecstasy pills the cops also uncovered 100 bottles of steroids, an unregistered 9 mm handgun and $7000 in small bills (naturally).

As the three men were charged with second-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, they face up to life in prison. The alleged dealers' next appearance in court will be on May 23, in the Narcotics Part of Queens Supreme. Some sources close to the case are betting that the Beverly Hills Wonder, Krzeszowiac, will blink first, roll over on the two Queens boys and give them up for whatever Queens DA Richard Brown wants.

I took a drive out to the College Point Blvd. house last week. The street's a narrow, two-way number lined with small businesses and homes. The house where the men were arrested is a new brick structure, three stories high. It's a true Queens brick job?the kind you see all over the borough?hideous boxes that sell for more than $400,000. All the lights were out and it looked like it had been shut up for the season. Catalogs and magazines piled up in the mailbox. Across the street was a huge laundromat full of white ethnics and Latinos doing their wash. No one wanted to talk about the house on the other side of the street. Questions were met with stares. I got the feeling they thought I should get the hell out of their neighborhood.

In an unrelated case, on March 16, a retired 71-year-old Queens resident, Ben Machloof, got off a plane from France at Miami International Airport. Alert customs agents detained the nervous senior and inspected his luggage. The Fed bulls found 61,000 pills of ecstasy stashed in his suitcase's false bottom. Machloof was federally charged with importing a controlled substance with the intent to distribute, and could face 20 years in prison if he is convicted. His last years on Earth, ruined. They must sure like their ecstasy out in Queens.