A criminal was caught walking through Newport city centre carrying more than £100,000 of dirty cash in his rucksack.

Omari Bailey, 30, was stopped and searched by police near the Old Green roundabout over the summer.

Emily Jermin, prosecuting, told Cardiff Crown Court that officers recovered bundles of notes that had been vacuum packed.

Bailey refused to tell detectives where the £109,400 cash had come from or where he was taking it.

Judge Simon Mills told him: “You're not going to be sentenced on the basis it was drug money because I simply don't know what kind of criminal property it was.

“I know it was criminal property because you've admitted that it was.

“I strongly suspect that whoever that money belonged to will be profoundly upset that you were caught with it because it's now gone because I'm going to be making a deprivation order depriving you of any right to it.

“That money will just end up going into the Exchequer I suspect, although that's for others to decide.”

Bailey, of Chaldon Road, Fulham, London pleaded guilty to possessing criminal property.

He has previous 10 previous convictions for 18 offences and has served time in a young offender institution for supplying heroin and crack cocaine.

Stuart John representing him said: “He's made a significant error of judgement in doing this.

“The defendant had a lot of trouble in his adolescence and he had a difficult upbringing.

“He spent time in foster care.”

The court was told Bailey had spent the past five months in prison after he was remanded in custody following his arrest at around 5.45pm on Tuesday, July 25.

Judge Mills said to him: “You were carrying this money around, obviously to a destination – there were text messages about that.

"I don't think you're at the top of the chain.

“You are the person delivering or collecting the money.

“The people whose money it is almost never get involved in that end of the deal.”

Bailey was jailed for nine months months but that sentence was suspended for 18 months.

The defendant must carry out 180 hours of unpaid work and has to complete a 20-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

He will have to pay a victim surcharge.