HIALEAH, Fla. – Alphonse Emanuel Corneille is being held without bond Monday at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center. Officers say he is probably wishing he hadn't trusted a cocaine dealer in Hialeah.
Corneille, 38, lives in a fenced home in Miami's Little River neighborhood near Western Union and the Oasis Bodyworks Asian Spa. He was sending text messages Friday to a man who was supposed to sell him two kilos of cocaine, police said.
Detectives say Corneille used "boxes" as coded language for kilograms and "papers" as coded language for cash. He and the seller -- who is a confidential informant -- made a deal at $24,500 per kilogram, according to the Hialeah Police Department.
Corneille was driving an Enterprise Rent-A-Car when he showed up to a parking lot Saturday in Hialeah to meet the seller, police said. When the seller didn't show up to the meeting spot, Corneille continued the deal with two men he likely didn't know were undercover narcotics detectives.
"He only comes out for deals that are five kilos or more," the detective told Corneille about the seller, according to the police report.
Corneille showed them the 49 bundles of $1,000 each, and followed them to a more discreet place, police said. He placed the cash on the table and they placed an open kilogram of cocaine wrapped in black tape on the table, police said.
"Corneille was looking around the location and was visibly nervous ... [he] began reaching into his pocket and a takedown signal was given," officers wrote in their report.
The undercover detectives had placed two wrapped kilos on the table when Corneille retrieved a phone from his pocket, and not a gun as they had feared, police said. He was on a call when the officers moved to arrest him, police said.
Narcotics detectives impounded 507 grams of cocaine and sent them to the Miami-Dade lab for analysis in the case. Prosecutors filed the case Sunday in Miami-Dade County court. Corneille is facing four felony charges: Cocaine trafficking, money laundering, unlawful communications and using a place for the purpose of trafficking cocaine.