Two men with drugs were arrested in a luxury vehicle with suspiciously tinted windows on Interstate 75 in Sumter County.
Fernando Lopez, 39, of Gainesville, was driving the Audi A6 at about 12:30 p.m. Monday on I-75 south of County Road 476B when a trooper noticed the heavily tinted windows, according to an arrest report from the Florida Highway Patrol. As the trooper was using a tint meter to check the windows during a traffic stop, a K-9 unit arrived on the scene. The dog alerted on the vehicle, indicating the likely presence of drugs.
A search of the vehicle turned up 33.9 grams of packaged MDMA, a marijuana grinder and a smoking pipe.
A white hotel key card holder which held a white substance was spotted in the center console cup holder of the vehicle. The substance also tested positive for MDMA. Lopez said he and his passenger, 23-year-old Nathaniel Dmitry Little, also of Gainesville, had been at a hotel listening to music with friends “in and around his vehicle,” the report said. He said the MDMA did not belong to him and claimed he’d planned to return the MDMA to his friend.
Both men were arrested on charges of drug possession and possession of drug equipment. They were taken into custody and booked at the Sumter County Detention Center on $3,000 bond each.