The banknotes were wet, but Austrian police are not treating the find of more than 100,000 euros found in the Danube river as a classic case of money laundering.

Firefighters fished the banknotes worth nearly $110,000 out of the water in Vienna on the weekend. On Monday, police remained mystified about how they got there, and who the owner is.

Police spokesman Roman Hahslinger says there are no links to robberies or other crimes involving such a large amount of money.

He suggests that if the search for the owner fails, it could be a case of finders' keepers for a man who discovered the large denomination notes on Saturday and then dove into the water to start recovering them.