Money launderer puts cash in oven

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A convicted money launderer has been ordered by pay £341,000 by a court after police found bags of cash stored in an oven at his Nottingham home.

Officers discovered £182,000 in notes at the home of Horrace Wallace, 47, in Miller's Court in Radford.

A confiscation hearing at Nottingham Crown Court heard that Wallace owned a luxury car and a foreign villa, despite claiming unemployment benefit.

Wallace was already serving a five-year sentence for money laundering.

Officers searched the house after an anonymous tip-off about drugs.

It's the first time we've come across this amount of cash and somebody who would conceal that amount in an oven Det Sgt Nick Allwood

They found the banknotes in carrier bags hidden in the bottom of the oven at the property.

The notes were coated in heroin, a forensic scientist had previously told a court hearing that they had never seen banknotes so heavily contaminated with drugs.

Det Sgt Nick Allwood said: "There were about 20 supermarket carrier bags in there, all with various denominations screwed up.

"It's the first time in Nottinghamshire we've come across this amount of cash and it's the first time we've come across somebody who would conceal that amount of cash in an oven."

Detectives discovered that Wallace also had £45,000 in bank accounts, that he had paid nearly £50,000 as a down payment for a villa on the Cape coast in South Africa and owned a Volvo convertible car.

Villa sale

Wallace had admitted six money laundering offences relating to over £300,000 at a hearing in June 2006.

At the confiscation hearing on Wednesday he claimed that the money was the result various sources of income including gambling and the sale of hundreds of his own oil paintings.

He was ordered to pay £246,000 within 28 days and a further £95,000 through the sale of the villa within six months.

Under the provision of the order if the money is not paid within the deadline Wallace's sentence will be increased by three years and he will still have to pay the full sum.

The money will be used by police and government to fight crime.