Court orders drug dealer to forfeit almost £10,000 found in his car

Marc Nelder, 44, was jailed in May after officers found him asleep in his car with £30,000 of cocaine and almost £10,000 in cash.

Nelder was sat in the driver’s seat of his Volkswagen Tiguan when officers spotted him parked in Peer Road, Eaton Socon, in the early hours of the morning of March 25 last year.

A road side breath test confirmed Nelder was over the limit and he was arrested for being drunk in charge of a vehicle. As he was arrested, officers searched the vehicle and found five bags of cocaine, worth up to £30,000.

They also found almost £10,000 in banknotes, digital scales and a mobile phone with messages that indicated Nelder was dealing cocaine.

Nelder pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply and was sentenced on May 4 at Cambridge Crown Court, where he was jailed for three years. He was also banned from driving for 12 months at a previous hearing.

Specialist financial investigators from the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit (ERSOU) Financial Investigation team undertook an investigation into the profit Nelder had made from his crimes.

At the same court on Tuesday (14 July), at the conclusion of a Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) Confiscation hearing an order for the confiscation of the cash seized from Nelder at the time of his arrest was made, the entirety of his known assets.

ERSOU Financial Investigation manager Andy Gould said: “The order made by the court against Mark Nelder represents a highly satisfactory outcome to this matter and once more sends out the clear message that working alongside our colleagues in Cambridgeshire Police, ERSOU’s specialist financial investigators will look to strip those who seek to profit from crime of the very thing that motivated them to engage in those unlawful activities in the first instance, the profit from their elicit trade.”