Cops found 'drug dealer's' cash stash in fridge, stove and bin

A suspected drug dealer who kept more than R250,000 in his car, fridge, stove and bin has failed to convince a judge the cash should be returned to him.

Acting Judge Russell MacWilliam said Aldeno Joseph and his “woefully inadequate” advocate presented an unconvincing argument for the return of the cash.

In his Cape Town high court judgment, MacWilliam said advocate Dave Houze at one point advanced arguments that were more helpful to the National Director of Public Prosecutions, which successfully applied under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act for the preservation of R252,051 confiscated from Joseph.

Police in Grassy Park, Cape Town, confiscated R20,000 from the car of 28-year-old Joseph in July 2017 and R232,051 from his Ottery home in January 2018.

The cash in the fridge was not cold, said MacWilliam, “the inference being that it had recently been placed there” and might have been the same packet police had seen Joseph carrying into the flat.

More cash was found hidden under the hotplates on the stove, “the last place one would keep money which had been obtained from a lawful source [because of] the risk that the bank notes might be burnt”.

Two bags of money were found in a bin outside the flat, and Joseph claimed they had been there for two months. MacWilliam said it was “inconceivable” that legitimate cash would be handled “in so cavalier a fashion ... with crime as it is in South Africa”.

Turning to Houze, a junior counsel admitted as an advocate in 2014, the judge said it became apparent during the case that his knowledge of the case was “woefully inadequate”, and he disappeared at one point for a 45-minute tea break — three times as long as the court allowed.

He struggled to find papers relating to the case from “a copious number of documents” he brought to court, then advanced an argument that was “seriously adverse” to Joseph’s interests.

The NDPP told the court Joseph, who has addresses in Ottery, Parow and Brackenfell, was a well-known drug dealer and had paid several admission-of-guilt fines for drug possession. Eleven “bankies” of dagga were seized from his car with the R20,000.