Nadir's alleged cash deposits 'would have weighed 135 tonnes'

Runaway tycoon Asil Nadir claimed his mother was taking tonnes of money to the bank which would have been 300 times the height of Nelson's Column, the Old Bailey heard today.

Nadir, who is accused of stealing nearly £150 million from his own company, told investigators his mother was matching his withdrawals with similar cash deposits in Cyprus, the jury was told. He produced a deposit slip which allegedly showed that 148.8 million Turkish lira had been deposited in 100 lira notes.

Philip Shears QC, prosecuting, said: "Such a huge quantity of bank notes is likely to have weighed over 135 tonnes. As for the space taken up by such a volume of bank notes, if all the notes were piled on top of each other they would have reached a height something like 300 times the height of Nelson's Column."

Nadir had claimed that his mother Safiye, then in her late sixties, had deposited the cash in a branch of the Industrial Bank of Kibris, which the tycoon owned in Northern Cyprus. She had paid the money in to cover a withdrawal of £6 million he made from Polly Peck International's account in London in June 1988, he said.

Mr Shears went on: "What is also open to question is how Nadir's mother was physically able to arrange to transport and deposit such vast quantities of banknotes to a branch of the IBK on a regular basis. Moreover, from where did she get all this money?"

Mr Shears said that the documents Nadir produced allegedly to support his claims of money being paid into Cypriot banks were bogus.

Nadir, 70, of Belgravia, denies 13 specimen charges of stealing £34 million from PPI between 1987 and 1990.Due to stand trial in 1993 Nadir fled to Northern Cyprus, returning to London in August 2010. The case continues