Waste Picker Returns A Bag Containing 2 Billion Tomans Worth Of Gold And Dollars To Its Owner / “It Was A Trust, I Had To Return It!”

According to SAEDNEWS, citing Khabar Online, two to three days after the family’s search, a bank employee contacted the owner of the property and said that a person had found your bank card and claimed that other items were also inside the bag. The family went to the bank and, after providing the specifications and details, received the gold and dollars inside the bag.

The newspaper “Etemad” conducted an interview with that family and the person who found the gold and dollars. The family’s son explained the details of that day to “Etemad” as follows: “On March 3, my mother intended to travel to Tehran. She packed her belongings and placed the gold and dollars she had at home inside a bag. One of her young grandchildren, not knowing there was gold and dollars inside, mistook the bag for garbage and placed it outside the door of the house. My mother came to Tehran. There she remembered that the gold and dollars were missing. She became certain that she might have left them at home, so she returned to Aligudarz to search the house, but did not find them. We searched everywhere for two or three days and followed up, until the bank called us and said someone had found a bank card with your surname on it. We went to the bank, and that person handed over the gold and dollars to us.”

He continues: “When that person collected the trash and left, he sorted it as usual. When he opened the bag that belonged to us, he came across gold and dollars. Since my mother’s bank card was inside the bag, he took the information from it. First, he went to the neighborhoods where he thought the bag might have been taken from and asked whose house matched that name, but because my mother’s first name in her official documents was different, the neighbors did not recognize her. This person went to several houses for two or three days and asked for household information. Then he had to go to the bank where my mother’s bank card was issued. He told the bank employees that he had only found a bank card. When my mother and my uncle went to the bank, that person told them he had also found other items and would return the bag if they provided identification details. My mother gave him the specifications of the gold, and the bag was returned. He himself told us that some of his friends told him this bag could change his life and he should keep it for himself, but he did not accept. This person’s father was a sales manager at a factory and has retired. So he comes from a respectable family, but later his life fell apart.”

The person who found the bag of gold and dollars is 52 years old. He told “Etemad”: “That day I collected the trash, and when I started sorting it, I noticed there was a lot of gold and dollars inside the bag. For a few days, these gold and dollars were with me, but because we were raised with lawful earnings, I could not keep the bag for myself. My parents had taught us that other people’s property belongs to others.”

He also answered the final questions:

When asked: considering your financial situation is weak, any other person might not have returned the gold and dollars or might not have even followed up on the matter. What made you return it to the owner?

He said: “Yes, you are right, but the gold and dollars were not mine, and I told myself these are a trust in my hands and I must return them to their owner no matter what. I looked at the bag as a trust.”

When asked: how did you think of going to the bank? Did someone guide you or did you go yourself?

He said: “There was no identification card inside except the bank card, which had the owner’s details on it. So I went to the relevant bank. I did not want to go to the police station, because if something had happened I would have been embarrassed in front of the owner. My only intention was to find the owner and return the bag. That is why I went to the bank and said I had found someone’s bank card. They contacted the owner through the bank system and informed them. The owner came to the bank, and I handed over the gold and dollars.”