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“We don’t find much crystal meth in this area and GHB arrests are also uncommon,” Fort Lee Capt. Thomas Ottina said.
Ivan Natal, 24, of Newark (above, inset), was behind the wheel of a swerving car that nearly hit the curb on Lemoine Avenue before dawn yesterday, Ottina said.
Officers Michael Ferraro and Laki Pothos said they pulled over the white Infinity at Tom Hunter Road.
Ferraro spoke with Natal, who Ottina said “was extremely nervous and shaking.”
Smelling burnt pot coming from inside, Ferraro had him get out. He then began questioning him while Pothos spoke with Natal’s passenger, a Cliffside Park man.
They obtained Natal’s consent to search the car and found a black backpack in back that Ottina said contained “8 hypodermic syringes, a glass container with a clear liquid, 2 small bags with a rock-like substance in it, and 1 blue colored jar with a clear rock-like substance.”
Natal said the backpack was his, so the officers arrested him while releasing his friend.
At headquarters, police found more pills, a liquid dropper, three butane lighters, 51 black glassine envelopes and a digital scale, Ottina said.
The liquid was gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and the rocks methamphetamine, he said.
Natal was being held on $100,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with possession of GHB and meth, as well as possession of a hypodermic syringe and drug paraphernalia, records show.
Police also issued him a summons for an unsafe lane change, Ottina said.
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