A businessman found a stash of R450 000 cash in his Port Elizabeth hotel room — money which turned out to belong to the Indian Premier League team Kings IX Punjab, The Times newspaper reported on Thursday.

Altech Autopage Cellular boss Stephen Blewett said he discovered the money in R100 notes in his hotel room's safe on Tuesday night.

Blewett bundled the money into a laundry bag and took it to reception.

It later emerged that the IPL team had left the money — allowances for food, drinks and other expenses — in that room because they had been using it for meetings.

"It is not common for us to carry that amount of money but we have a lot of costs and the money was not yet distributed to the players," said the team's liaison officer, Arvinder Singh.

It is not clear why the cash remained in the safe after Blewett had booked into the room.

Sapa

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