POLICE CALL SEIZURE OF ECSTASY THEIR LARGEST

A Brooklyn florist has been arrested with over 600,000 tablets of the drug
Ecstasy in what federal agents and the police said yesterday was the New
York area's largest single seizure of the popular drug sold in dance clubs
and at all-night raves.

The man, identified as Charles Coppola, 58, was arrested Thursday morning
in front of his home at 2714 East 65th Street in the Mill Basin section of
Brooklyn by agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the
city and state police, the authorities said.

Yesterday, Mr. Coppola was arraigned in Federal District Court in Brooklyn
before Magistrate Judge Marilyn Dolan Go on a single count of possession
with intent to distribute narcotics and was held without bail. At the
arraignment, Jed Davis, an assistant United States attorney, said Mr.
Coppola faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Mr. Coppola's lawyer, Fern Schwaber, would not comment on the case.

A euphoria-producing synthetic stimulant, Ecstasy, which is also known as
MDMA for the chemical compound that makes up its active ingredient --
methylenedioxymethamphetamine -- has become increasingly popular in recent
years, officials said.

Lewis Rice Jr., the special agent in charge of the D.E.A.'s New York
office, yesterday pointed to a study released Monday by the Partnership for
a Drug-Free America that found use among American teenagers had doubled
since 1995. He said the rise in the drug's popularity was being driven in
part by traffickers who have carefully marketed the drug, a commodity from
which they are making millions of dollars.

The drug is largely produced in Western Europe, often in the Netherlands,
where it can be bought for 50 cents to $2 per tablet, he said. It is sold
in New York and around the country for $20 to $40 per tablet, making a
conservative estimate of the potential profit on the drugs seized from Mr.
Coppola of more than $10 million.

The seizure is the second-largest in the United States, said Joseph
Pentangelo, a D.E.A. spokesman. The largest, involving more than 2 million
tablets, was made by U.S. Customs Service agents in July.

Some of the pills seized Thursday were found in the trunk of Mr. Coppola's
rental car and others were found in his house, according to a criminal
complaint filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn by Frank Adamo, a
D.E.A. special agent.

The complaint also said that the New York Drug Enforcement Task Force, made
up of D.E.A. agents and New York City and state police investigators, had
been investigating Mr. Coppola since January.

The Ecstasy tablets seized in the case are emblazoned with different logos,
including four-leaf clovers and a silhouette of the cartoon character
Tweety Bird, Mr. Rice said.

A law enforcement official said Mr. Coppola was a "low-level player" with
one prior arrest for tax violations in 1992. During the arraignment, Mr.
Davis, the assistant United States attorney, said Mr. Coppola has made
several trips to Israel despite claiming a weekly income of just a few
hundred dollars a week.