The money was found during a recent check at the Preganziol motorway exit; the vehicle in which the cash was found belongs to a Sardinian transport company.
Initially, nothing untoward was detected with the transported goods in the trailer. However, the police subsequently used a sniffer dog to look for any drugs that may have been hidden in the lorry.
The dog appeared to detect something, prompting officers to conduct a thorough search of the truck. That the led to the discovery of €280,000 cash that had been placed inside cellophane bags and hidden under the cabin bed.
When questioned about how he had obtained the cash, the lorry driver told officers that just before beginning his journey, by chance he had found a sealed envelope lying on the ground. He also claimed that he had no idea what was inside the envelope until the officers had inspected the truck.
However, it appears that the police weren’t convinced by the trucker’s story.
In a statement, the finance police said that due to the man’s “unreliable reconstruction of the facts and the absence of logical explanations for being in the possession of the cash”, the driver was reported to Treviso public prosecutor’s office for being in possession of stolen items.