A rail passenger was caught at a station with cocaine worth £71,500 hidden in a packet of cereal, a court heard.

Jean Momendeng was stopped at Preston Park station, Brighton, after he got off a train from London with a kilo of the drugs in a packet of Coco-Pops.

Richard Cherrill, prosecuting, told Lewes Crown Court Momendeng had already been to Brighton earlier in the day to buy £3,000 in euros from a travel agent in London Road.

They were purchased with the proceeds of a forged cheque for £9,195, which had been paid into his bank account.

Momendeng, 35, of Leicester Square, London, denies supplying a Class A drug to persons unknown on April 17, this year.

He also denies being concerned in a money laundering operation between April 10 and April 17.

Mr Cherrill said Momendeng claimed he had been paid £100 to take the package to Brighton and would receive another £100 on delivery. He said he did not know what was in it.

In a second statement he claimed he had bought a car for £3,000 in London to sell on for a profit.

He claimed he had given it to a Portuguese friend of a friend who had agreed to pay £8,000 for it but he had then left the country. He told police he thought he had been "well and truly done".

However, he claimed the Portuguese man later contacted him and gave him a cheque for £9,195, saying the extra money was to compensate him for the trouble he had been put to.

Mr Cherrill said: "That is complete and utter nonsense.

"We say he not only came to Brighton with a substantial quantity of a Class A drug, but that he came earlier in the day to withdraw the proceeds of a forged cheque. It is just incredible that this Portuguese man should have come to him with a cheque for £1,195 more than he agreed to pay for that car."

The trial continues.