A drug dealer has been jailed after he was spotted by police handing over more than £100,000 in cash at a pub car park.

Officers from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate had been following 56-year-old Brian Daniels when he turned up off the A20 in the village of Hothfield near Ashford in April 2016.

Daniels, of Anchor Road in Rochester, handed over a package to Edilson Struett who then placed it into the top box of his red Honda motorbike during the brief exchange.

But they were being watched by officers, who arrested the duo immediately and found bundles of cash worth £115,000 inside.

Struett, 49, of Brenthouse Road in Hackney, London, told police he knew nothing about the package and was just a courier.

He had been told by a friend to go to a London cafe and meet a man who gave him a mobile phone and pieces of paper with telephone numbers and postcodes.

The first was the car park where he met Daniels, who also claimed he did not know what was in the package.

But forensics tests showed that Daniels had in fact handled the cash inside the package.

The money was forfeited under the Proceeds of Crime Act, and neither of the two men came forward to claim legitimate ownership.

The duo were charged with possessing criminal property and admitted the offence at Canterbury Crown Court earlier this month.

Detective Inspector James Derham was the senior investigating officer during the case. He said: “Law-abiding members of the public do not exchange such high quantities of cash without knowing who it belongs to or where it has come from.

“Brian Daniels handled the money found in the package and clearly knows a lot more about how it came to be in his possession than he is letting on.

“While Edilson Struett claims to have only been the courier, ignorance is no excuse when you are playing such a key role in the exchange of criminal property.

“The cash in this case was most certainly not earned through legitimate means and I am pleased the jury saw fit to convict both men for their actions.”

The duo appeared at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday. Struett was ordered to carry out 160 hours on unpaid work and received a six-month suspended prison sentence.

Daniels meanwhile was jailed for two years after admitting the possession of criminal property, and possessing cannabis with the intent to supply in a separate case.