Judge acquits man who battled 16 years to protect his life savings but decides to take away almost 100% of the money

If you’ve ever fantasized about finding a huge stash of cash and keeping it, prepare for a dose of legal reality. A Canadian man just lost his 16-year legal fight to hold onto more than 1.2 million Canadian dollars that he’d hidden in bizarre locations around his property. An Ontario appeals court recently upheld a 2023 ruling that determined the overwhelming majority of the money must now be allocated directly to the government.

This whole saga began on December 1, 2009, when police visited Marcel Breton’s rural home outside Thunder Bay, a city in northwest Ontario. Officials were looking for an illegal handgun, but what they found instead was absolutely wild. They were, according to CNN, completely “flabbergasted” by the discovery.

Breton wasn’t just hiding cash under a mattress. Police first found 15,000 Canadian dollars stuffed into the floor heating ducts in the living room. Next, they located about 32,000 dollars stashed in various spots around the garage. But the biggest find was the true shocker: over 1.2 million in Canadian bills packed into a rubber tub buried deep in the ground right underneath the garage. Altogether, this incredible hoard was worth $1.19 million back in 2009.

He didn’t just find this lying around

Police also found a collection of illegal substances, including cocaine, marijuana, and ecstasy. Breton was charged with several offenses, including possession of the proceeds of crime, and was initially convicted. But here’s the interesting part: he actually won a retrial by successfully arguing that the police search of his property wasn’t lawful. He walked away acquitted of the criminal charges, but that left a massive question hanging in the air: What about all that money?

You’d think that an acquittal would mean he gets his life savings back, but that’s where the civil courts step in. Justice Bruce Fitzpatrick, the trial judge, ordered that while he can keep 15,000 Canadian dollars ($10,634)- since saying it was obtained unlawfully wasn’t possible – most of the money be handed over to the government, and the appeals court affirmed that decision on Monday. I think this is awful for anyone who believes in clear legal procedure, but the judges clearly weren’t buying Breton’s story.

Justice Fitzpatrick noted that it’s highly “unusual for an average person to have such a large amount of money buried in tubs underneath their property.” That’s a fair point; if you’ve got that much cash, you’d think you’d be earning bank interest on it! The judge also pointed out that Breton hadn’t reported any income to the Canada Revenue Agency between 2001 and 2008.

Adding to the suspicion, the most common bill found in the bundled stacks was the $20 Canadian dollar note, which is frequently associated with the drug trade. Breton tried to argue that he’d won the money in a lottery or casino, or earned it through his vehicle repair business, but the trial judge didn’t accept those justifications.

This is likely because you have to report your gambling winnings over a certain amount, so his story would have a paper trail to prove it, which it does not. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like this is evidence for a trial