Renter Doesn't Get to Keep 'Unusual' Cash Stash of $850K

A Canadian man will walk away with an $11,000 consolation prize after a court battle over $850,000 found stashed in a plastic tub under an Ontario garage, with the government claiming the larger jackpot. Police searching for an illegal handgun on a rural property in Thunder Bay in 2009 found the money stuffed in a Rubbermaid container under the dirt floor of the garage, along with the US equivalent of $11,000 stashed in a heating vent and nearly $7,000 in a suitcase, per the New York Times. The man renting the property, Marcel Breton, was charged with offenses related to possessing criminal proceeds, but he was eventually acquitted after successfully challenging the search warrant.

The cash, however, remained a separate matter. On Monday, an Ontario appeals court ruled that Canada's government could keep the dough because prosecutors were able to show the money wasn't lawfully Breton's. The court cited the "unusual" circumstances of the money, including its packaging—it was divided into 30 bricks, each marked with a "5" or "10" and containing exactly $5,000 or $10,000 in Canadian dollars—and the fact that $20 bills were the most common denomination found, which experts said are associated with the drug trade.

It took "flabbergasted" cops 18 hours to count the cash, which one officer said was "moldy, damp, and sticking together" in some cases, per the National Post. Police also found 111 grams of cocaine and digital scales stashed in the garage, per the Times. Breton hadn't reported any income to the Canada Revenue Agency from 2001 to 2008. He argued he had "reasonable alternative explanations" for the cash, according to court records, including that he was running a cash-only repair business or that he won the money legally in a casino or lottery, but the trial judge dismissed those explanations in 2023; the appeals court upheld that ruling.

One curiosity: The government must return the $11,000 found in the heating vent. "This cash, alone, was his personal money, being kept there, close to him," the judge found. Per a CBC report from 2014, one of Breton's exes testified that he'd also claimed to have hidden $70,000 or so in his mother's attic.