You can fit £5,925 inside an Xbox you know.
A raid undertaken to investigate a man operating an illegal business selling Sony PSP SD memory cards and chipping offences resulted in the discovery of over £12,000... stashed inside games consoles!You can't make it up really, can you? Obviously doing quite well from trading dodgy PSP SD cards and chipping PS2 and Xboxes, the man from Tower Hamlets needed somewhere to hide his ill-gotten gains... and obviously behind the sofa or int he tea caddy was far too low-tech, so he opened up an Xbox and three PS2s and bunged his wads in them instead.
I'll let the ELSPA press release tell you the full tale:
Following the raid at a man’s house in Tower Hamlets on Monday 14th January the incredible discovery only came about when the consoles, seized by Tower Hamlets Trading Standards investigators and officers from the Metropolitan Police, were handed over to ELSPA (the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association) IP Crime Unit investigators.
Following standard protocol, the ELSPA investigators began removing the casing of each of the four consoles with the intention of checking for evidence of circumvention devices (chips) and tampered hard drives when they discovered several plastic bank bags – each containing thousands of pounds sterling in note form.
The Xbox contained a staggering £5,925 where the hard drive should have been and the three PlayStation2s each volunteered £2,835 £2,025, and £1,425 respectively, making a grand, wallet-bulging total of £12,210 recovered.
Cash discovery aside, the man had been selling PSP games on SD memory cards (he was caught in possession of an estimated 75) and providing an Xbox and PlayStation 2 chipping service. Consequently, a POCA (Proceeds Of Crime Act) investigation has already started to estimate the criminal gain from his illegal activities.
Michael Rawlinson, managing director of ELSPA, commented: “I’ve heard it all now. It never ceases to amaze ELSPA and its investigators the lengths criminals go to make money – and always to the detriment of honest, hard working businesses. I congratulate Tower Hamlets Trading Standards on bringing to an end this illegal business operation.”
Imagine if he'd mistakenly sold one on... that'd been the bargain of the century!
