Blundering illegal immigrant left £3,000 and his drugs on train from Leeds

Albanian Marco Canaku boarded the service at Leeds Railway Station on June 19 and store his bags, but then got off briefly to make a phone call. Leeds Crown Court was told that the 20-year-old was heard screaming “my bags!” as the the train pulled away.

The train manager later told British Transport Police that Canaku had initially been booked onto a later service but had asked to board the earlier train, which was agreed. When they saw him outside the train, they assumed he had changed his mind and the train was given the green light to set off.

Smelling strongly of cannabis, he was detained at Leeds and the police were asked to retrieve his bags from the train when it pulled into Doncaster. Inside a duffle bag they found the cash, separated into bundles and tied with elastic bands. They also found just over half-an-ounce of cannabis buds.

He admitted to police that he was in the UK illegally, and that he had been working on construction sites, which was accepted by the Crown. He said the cannabis was for personal use, had smoked it since he was 14 and claimed he did not know it was illegal.

He said he was travelling to London in order to catch a flight to return to Albania. Canaku, of no fixed address has no previous convictions. He admitted a charge of possessing cannabis and acquiring illegal property.

No mitigation was offered by his barrister, Matthew Stewart, after Judge Ray Singh told him he would not be jailing him, despite him spending the last month on remand in HMP Doncaster. Instead, he gave him a 12-month conditional discharge, but said the £3,000 would be confiscated, as would the drugs.

Judge Singh told Canaku: “You have already spent time in custody, but bearing in mind the sentencing guidelines, it would not merit a prison sentence. It’s not my area of concern as to what happens to you after today, you accept you are an illegal immigrant and it’s likely the Home Office will detain you and you will be deported.”