Police officers and environmental workers return a bag containing 1.17 billion dong in cash to its owner in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem district (3rd, left). Photo courtesy of police
Police in Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem district cooperated with environmental activists to return more than 1 billion dong ($40,550) in cash to a family who mistakenly threw it in the trash.
Nguyen Dinh Phuong, deputy police chief of Hang Bai district, said Friday that 1.17 billion dong in cash was found at a garbage collection point in the area.
Earlier, on Wednesday at around 8:25 p.m., a man on Ly Thuong Kiet Street took a trash bag to a collection point near his home. About 15 minutes later, the family discovered that the money, freshly withdrawn from the bank, was in the trash bag. Everyone tried to look for the bag but was unsuccessful, so they reported the matter to the police.
“I was so confused at that moment. My wife cried because the amount of money lost was too much,” the man said.
Phuong and his forces then analyzed camera footage of families living nearby and saw a red bag, suspected of containing money, mixed in with the trash. Authorities then contacted the Hoan Kiem branch of the Urban Environment Society to deploy employees to search for the bag.
One group went to the Nam Son landfill in Soc Son district to search for the bag, while the other cooperated with locals to search trash carts in the area.
After two hours, the bag was found in a trash bin on Hang Bai Street, which was about to be transported to the Nam Son landfill.
