Feds: 200 Pounds Of Coke, Fentanyl Seized In NJ Turnpike Stop Of NY Tractor-Trailer Driver

A tractor-trailer driver from Yonkers had nearly 100 kilos of cocaine and fentanyl combined when he was stopped for driving erratically on the New Jersey Turnpike near the Meadowlands, authorities said.

Members of a special federal drug task force found the more than 200 pounds of coke and heron aftrer stopping Alejandro Nouel Lajud, 39, near the Meadowlands in East Rutherford on Monday, Dec. 5, authorities said.
Photo Credit: *njta.com*

Jerry DeMarco

12/07/2022 1:46 p.m.

Members of a special federal drug task force found the nearly 225-pound shipment after stopping Alejandro Nouel Lajud, 39, on the Turnpike in East Rutherford on Monday, Dec. 5, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger said.

The drugs were divided into 95 brick-shaped packages each weighing a little over two pounds -- 70 of them containing cocaine and 25 holding fentanyl, Sellinger said.

A federal judge in Newark that same day ordered that Lajud remain held on drug charges.

Sellinger, meanwhile, credited members of the New York City-based Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) for the takedown.

The group unites members of various law enforcement agencies at all levels -- local, county, state and federal -- in New York, New Jersey and elsewhere who work side-by-side to "disrupt and dismantle the most significant drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations" in the area, Sellinger said.

Those involved in the arrest and seizure included members of the New York/New Jersey High-Intensity Drug Trafficking team, he said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenny Chung of the OCDETF/Narcotics Unit in Newark is handling the case for the government, Sellinger said.

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