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Detectives with the Bergen County Prosecutor's Narcotic Task Force stopped a 2009 Toyota Rav4 driven by Mervin Menier, 50, of Union City for speeding on the New Jersey Turnpike in Carlstadt this past Tuesday, Oct. 18.
The investigators had been tipped off by the DEA that Menier was “transporting bulk shipments” of drugs and cash into and through New Jersey and New York, according to complaint on file in Superior Court in Hackensack.
Menier refused to allow a search of the vehicle, so a Bergen County Sheriff's K-9 Unit was summoned.
A "positive indication to the presence of narcotics" led to an application for a search warrant that was granted by a Superior Court judge, according to the complaint
The search turned up “a sophisticated, electronically operated hidden compartment” beneath the rear floor, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.
In the secret trap investigators found what the prosecutor described as a Romarms AK-47-styled assault rifle, multiple high-capacity magazines for it, some rifle parts, numerous boxes of ammunition -- and the half-kilo of coke.
Menier was no stranger to investigators.
He spent several months in state prison last year in connection with one of the largest seizures in state history of alleged drug money, $1.2 million, from a defendant's trunk.
"Operation Skin Deep" began as an undercover probe into cocaine sales in Atlantic City before exposing a mail-order designer drug network.
Menier, who was among more than a dozen people charged in the takedown, was released in September 2021 after serving seven months of a maximum five-year sentence with no mandatory minimum, records show.
Musella’s detectives charged Menier with drug and weapons offenses – including being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm – as well as possession of high-capacity magazines.
They sent him to the Bergen County Jail, where he remained held on Friday, Oct. 21.
Musella thanked Homeland Security Investigations’ Newark Division and Bayonne and Union City police for their “cooperation and assistance” with the case.
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