The cash was for customs, not for Ming, although I doubt they could take cash either?
I had a similarly stupid thing happen to me the other day (also a copper)...
Some woman called up saying she'd knocked a young lad off his bmx - so it says on the log that her name is Ruth, and obviously she had a female voice, so we go there expecting to see a woman driving a car... Anyway, when we turn up there's a woman called Ruth sat in the drivers' seat of a Metro, with the seat pulled right forward. She'd knocked the lad off his bike as he cleverly decided to do a wheelie across the road in front of her, it was the kid's fault, but she was clearly shaken up. Her husband (who was considerably taller than her) was stood on the pavement talking to the lad and his mates. The kid wasn't injured, and was a bit of a gobsh*te, and when we turned up they all scarpered.
Anyway, the bloke then tells us that he was driving it.
"Erm, ok, so why's your missus in the drivers' seat?"
"She just moved it out of the way of the junction for me."
OK, so he sits in the back of the van while we check the car and his documents, and we leave the missus in the car. Running the car through the box reveals that only Ruth is insured to drive it, and the husband doesn't have his own insurance on another car.
"Are you sure you were driving it?"
"Umm well I might not have been..."
"Look mate were you driving it or not?"
"OK then, yes I was."
I go speak to the wife again, see if she wants to change her mind...
"No, he was definitely driving it."
If she'd have just admitted she was driving it, we would have just taken enough details for the accident book and sent them on their way - it was clearly the lad on the bike's fault, and he'd done one. As they were both adamant that it was the bloke who was driving, we ended up seizing their car (which costs about £150 a day storage), and reporting the bloke for driving with no insurance, which will cost him at least £500 and 6 points in court!
Why on earth would she not just say she was driving?!