Stupefying Sam

As a poor boy from Hepzibah (pop. 400), W. Va., Samuel Desist had every reason to live down to his patronym. But, setting his sights on an Army career, he enlisted and persisted. By 1962, when he was 39, Sam Desist wore a major's gold oak leaf and was press officer for the U.S. Army at Orleans in France. Desist also acquired a chic French wife, who bore him two sons, and a taste for la vie as it is not lived in Hepzibah.

At Orleans, where he got to know some of the city's first families, the American major soon became a familiar figure at chateau parties and hunts. After the French Ministry of the Interior awarded him the honorific Croix de Chevalier de l'Ordre du Merite Civil for promoting Franco-American relations, Desist's local reputation zoomed along with his popularity. He had found a home. When he retired from the Army last year, Desist decided to settle down near Orleans, and took a job with a metallurgical concern.

Biggest Ever. He did not, it seems, devote all his hours to metallurgy. Last week agents of the Brigade des Stupe-fiants--France's counterpart of the U.S. Narcotics Bureau--showed up at Desist's 14-room home at Saint-Jean-leBlanc and arrested him in connection with smuggling 209 Ibs. of pure heroin into the U.S. The narcotics, worth $2,800,000 wholesale and as much as $100 million retail (after cutting and diluting), had been found in a shack at a Columbus, Ga., trailer court. It was the biggest single haul of heroin ever captured in the U.S.

Besides Desist, seven other men and women were arrested, including Chief Warrant Officer Herman Conder, 35, who was recently transferred from Orleans to Fort Benning, Ga.; Frankie Dio, 48, operator of a Miami Beach nightclub and younger brother of Brooklyn Mobster Johnny Dio; and Jean Nebbia, 52, and Jean-Claude Le Franc, 50, both leading figures in France's Mafia-backed dope-smuggling fraternity.

Free Shipment. As American and French narcotics agents pieced together the story, Desist, who owned the apartment that Conder rented while he was stationed at Orleans, persuaded the warrant officer to bring the heroin into the U.S. for a $10,000 courier's fee--small change compared to the worth of the package. The drug, packed in 190 half-kilogram plastic bags, was secreted inside Conder's home freezer before the Army shipped it home with his other belongings. Soon after it arrived at Fort Benning in November, Le Franc tried to make the prearranged pickup.

But something went amiss, and the Feds weren't saying what. Finally, early this month, Nebbia was dispatched to the U.S. to smooth out the trouble and get the huge bundle of heroin into circulation tout de suite. Desist came along on a different plane. The trio met in New York and went to Columbus, where Le Franc and Nebbia planned to take delivery on the long-overdue shipment. U.S. narcotics agents, who had been tipped off about the scheme, shadowed them all the way. They had hardly reached Columbus before they realized they were being followed, and hightailed it back to New York. Desist left immediately for France; Le Franc and Nebbia stayed behind in Manhattan.

There, both were arrested last week, along with two Frenchwomen and a Brazilian national who were also charged with complicity. Meanwhile, agents had swooped down on Conder's trailer home in Columbus, arrested him and recovered the hot heroin. In Miami Beach, agents picked up Dio, who a few days earlier had flown to New York and lunched with Le Franc. As for Chevalier Desist, he was lodged in the Orleans jail, and faced the prospect of extradition and a different kind of vie back home.

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