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Francisco Oropez-Lima, 27, of Passaic told Detective T.J. Cullen he was in the country illegally and had no driver’s license after the detective stopped his 2000 Mercury Sable on the highway’s westbound for having tinted windows Friday night, Detective Capt. Stanley Zon said this afternoon.
Oropeza-Lima acted nervously in describing what he said was a 10-minute trip to the Bronx, so Cullen asked for and received his consent to search the vehicle, Zon said.
Cullen, a member of the department’s Anti-Crime Unit and one of the county’s leading officers in narcotics seizures, discovered six ounces of cocaine in the hidden compartment, the captain said.
He brought Oropeza-Lima to headquarters and learned that he’d been headed to his Passaic residence with the drugs.
So Cullen obtained his signed permission to search the apartment, Zon said.
Investigators from the Passaic Police Department and the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Group (HIDTA) joined the search, which turned up eight more ounces of cocaine, the kilo press, an undisclosed amounto of cash and large bottles of lidocaine, which are used to cut cocaine for distribution, the captain said.
They also found the a loaded Taurus .380 caliber semi- automatic handgun reported stolen out of Hanover Township, PA in July.
Oropeza-Lima was being held on $250,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, with a detainer from ICE, which had been investigating him, Zon said.
Charges include drug possession and distribution, receiving stolen property and several weapons offenses.
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