£30,000 Found In Car

4 October 2012, 11:22 | Updated: 4 October 2012, 11:24

Police are trying to work out how more than £30,000 in cash came to be inside a car that crashed into cones on the M1 in Bedfordshire.

Two traffic officers were called to a car which had hit cones in the roadworks between junctions 12 and 13 northbound on the M1 on Saturday 29 September 2012.

The driver had collapsed at the wheel after having an adverse reaction to medication. The officers looked for identity documents and any medication that could assist him and found a bag stuffed with cash.

After 47 year old Mark Holt had recovered, and it was established he was uninjured, he was arrested.

Bedfordshire Police say he could give no legitimate account of where the money had come from. It has been subject to a Cash Detention Order, granted at Bedford Magistrates Court, and will remain with the police pending further investigations into its origin.

Holt, of No Fixed Abode, but from Buckinghamshire area, was charged with using possessing or acquiring criminal property under the Proceeds of Crime Act and pleaded guilty to this offence at Luton Magistrates Court on Monday. He was remanded and awaits sentence at Luton Crown Court on 26 October 2012.

The Cash Detention order allows police to open the packets of cash, count it properly and, if appropriate, forensically analyse it under controlled conditions.

Ultimately it will be subject to further court proceedings in which the police would seek to permanently confiscate the money under the POCA legislation and then use it to fund further crime-fighting and community initiatives.