A police eBay account has raised nearly £850,000 by selling weird and wonderful items seized from criminals.
Sussex Police has been running an online auction account that sells an array of objects seized from crooks and handed in as lost property for more than a decade now.
Shoppers who visit the site are offered ‘bargain prices’ and have purchased everything from a £4,750 Cartier Santos watch and a £972 Panasonic camera, to a 99p toner cartridge and a £4.49 collectible teddy bear.
Among the dozens of random items currently up for grabs include a £9.50 dark grey Nike men’s tracksuit set, a £36 android tablet, an £11.50 candle set, a £160 mountain bike and a 99p four-drawer metal A4 document filing cabinet.
Sussex Police told Metro.co.uk the force had made a total of £839,860.73 from the sale of 28,157 items between 1st January 2009 and 15th October 2019.
All money raised is donated to charities around Sussex that benefit the community.
A Sussex Police spokesman said he couldn’t say exactly how many items were seized from criminals and how many were donated to lost property.
However, he stated the items that came from lost property were decreasing rapidly due to new guidelines.
The eBay account hit the news last week when the force began looking to hire a full-time worker to run the page due to ‘increasing demands’.
A starting salary of £19,359 to £20,619 is being offered for the 37-hour-a-week role.
The new employee will be expected to package and post items, record sales, deal with customer queries and ‘describe items honestly, to maintain the integrity of Sussex Police’.
