A California man being paid $8,000 to drive more than 12 pounds of heroin from Los Angeles to New Jersey was arrested last week after blowing through a stop sign in Fort Lee, federal prosecutors said.
Timothy Alan Blank, 54, told investigators he picked up the packages — containing $195,000 in heroin and fentanyl — from someone near Los Angeles International Airport on March 3, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey said in a charging document.
Blank completed the cross-country trip and was driving east on Myrtle Avenue in Fort Lee on Friday when he went through the stop sign and committed other traffic violations, authorities said. Police pulled him over a short distance away near Sylvan Avenue in Englewood Cliffs, according to court papers.
He and a woman in the front passenger seat gave police conflicting answers about why they were in the area when questioned, authorities said. Police called in a K-9, which detected drugs, authorities said.
Officers then found the narcotics in wrapped in five bricks in the trunk, officials said. Blank told investigators he arrived in New Jersey on Wednesday and was awaiting a phone call from his contact to drop off the drugs in Englewood Cliffs and receive payment, authorities said.
Blank is charged with possessing with the intent to distribute a detectable amount of fentanyl. A judge ordered him held. Attorney information for Blank was not immediately available.
The woman was also arrested, but her name and the charges were not disclosed.
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