Italian police on Wednesday closed the file on a baffling spate of bank robberies after finding the missing cash stashed inside a replica Spanish galleon the suspect had given his parents.
Andrea Picco, 34, was arrested in May while trying to rob a Milan bank.
He was carrying a gun stolen from a policeman during a previous stick-up.
Searching Picco's house, police then found bus and underground maps dotted with mazy escape routes from the two banks - plus another five.
But they couldn't pin the spree on their prime suspect until they managed to connect him with the money.
"Then one of our agents remembered he'd learned how to build ships in bottles during a prison stretch," a police spokesman said.
"He went to talk to his parents and noticed a beautiful model galleon Picco had given them as an anniversary present. "Lifting up the poop deck and peering inside, he found a
wad of banknotes in the hold which turned out to have come from the banks in question.
"The parents didn't know a thing about it".
