A Fife pensioner has been jailed for a year for his part in a £100,000 cross-border money-laundering plot.
John Rhinds, 72, was witnessed by HMRC investigators approaching a parked car outside a working men’s club in Barnsley, Yorkshire.
He was then observed handing over a supermarket bag for life stuffed with cash to Sean Wroe, 34 prompting officers to intervene.
Investigators said the cash was “clearly the proceeds of crime”.
The pair were interviewed and provided a “far fetched” tale of the transaction on October 23 2014.
Rhinds, of Bayview Crescent, Leven, claimed he received an anonymous phone call two days earlier asking him to leave his car unattended at a fast food restaurant in South Queensferry while a parcel was loaded into the boot, with instructions to deliver it to the club.
He claimed he drove the 230 miles without first checking the parcel was in the car, and with no knowledge that he was transporting cash.
Wroe, 34, of Halifax Road, Barnsley, claimed he had arrived for a shift at the club when an unknown male approached his car and passed a bag through the driver’s window.
He later said he had actually been at the club to buy cannabis and believed Rhinds was delivering the drug.
Mobile phone analysis linked the pair and roadside automatic number plate recognition cameras proved Rhinds made an almost identical journey just three days earlier.
Jo Tyler, assistant director, Fraud Investigation Service, HMRC, said the made-up alibi seemed “ridiculous”.
Both men admitted money laundering offences at Sheffield Crown Court on December 2 last year.
Judge Peter Kelson sentenced the pair to 12 months each in prison.