Rapper arrested after search turns up loaded guns in SUV

Rapper 50 Cent, whose hits include “Wanksta,” was arrested Tuesday after police found two guns inside a car parked outside a Manhattan nightclub, authorities said.

The 27-year-old, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, was arrested just before 2 a.m. after the sport utility vehicle he was riding in was found parked in a no-standing zone outside the Copacabana nightclub, police said.

Officers then conducted a search of the car because it had tinted windows, police said. Police found a .25-caliber handgun and a .45-caliber pistol, said a police department spokesman. Police said both guns were loaded.

50 Cent and the four men with him were each charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. The rapper’s lawyer could not be reached by telephone for comment.

John Mangan, the promoter for 50 Cent’s scheduled performance at the nightclub, said the police search was unjustified.

“I think they’re trying to get him ... to connect him to things that he has nothing to do with,” Mangan said.

50 Cent’s vehicle “was parked outside the club for no longer than two minutes, and as he was getting out of the car to go inside the police came up and stopped him and told him to get back in the car and go around the corner, where they searched the car,” Mangan said.

Eminem has been helping 50 Cent in his career, and his song “Wanksta” is on Eminem’s multiplatinum “8 Mile” soundtrack.