Truck driver busted for smuggling $86K in cash wrapped like sandwiches
A truck driver was arrested in the U.K. after police found roughly $85,000 in cash “disguised as sandwiches” in his semi-truck.
Essex Police said Mariusz Raczynski, a 28-year-old Polish national, was driving the wrong way at a port in Harwich on July 27. Suspecting the driver was trying to avoid a security checkpoint, the police department’s Rural Engagement Team pulled the truck over.
Officers searched the truck’s cab and found a bag with bundles wrapped up in silver foil, resembling a blocky sandwich or burrito. But instead of lunch, inside the bundles was 70,000 British pounds.
While Raczynski was initially arrested on suspicion of money laundering, he was sentenced to 20 weeks in jail earlier this month at Chelmsford Crown Court after admitting to concealing criminal property.
“In this case, our Rural Engagement Team colleagues were very proactive and alert to what was happening, meaning an arrest was quickly made,” Detective Constable Megan Tighe said. “As the [Proactive Money Laundering Team], we’ve worked hard to build the case and prove that the seized cash could only have come from crime.”
“In just two months, that collaboration and our hard work throughout the investigation has resulted in a conviction,” she added.
