Man finds an envelope with € 150,000 inside hidden in a second-hand kitchen cabinet: he returns everything to the rightful owner
Second-hand purchases at flea markets, in junk shops or simply online can be a real bargain if you have the expert eye for a certain type of product. Thomas Heller, a handyman from Bitterfield, Germany, did not expect to buy kitchen furniture for a few hundred euros and to find, hidden among the drawers, a real treasure. In fact, inside the furniture he bought, Thomas found an envelope containing money: around €150,000 euros in cash (±$160,000 dollars). It is clear that the value of the kitchen units, which had cost him only €240 euros, suddenly increased when he made this unexpected discovery. But Thomas didn't want to keep the money to himself, because he knew it wasn't his and that it had probably locked in the drawer by mistake or simply forgotten.
via Mirror
50-year-old Thomas Heller got a real bargain in buying a second-hand kitchen on the well-known online retail platform, eBay. Not only because the kitchen furniture was to his liking and he managed to bring the price down to an offer of €240 euros, but because inside one of the kitchen units he found an envelope containing hundreds of thousands of euros. "An envelope was there and inside were a lot of €100 euro bills looking at me," said Thomas, who was speechless at the time of the discovery. Thomas, however, did not celebrate his find: the money clearly belonged to someone else and, given his high sense of civic duty, he decided to take all the money and the kitchen furniture to the police station. At the police station, a second envelope full of money was found: "They opened the second locked drawer in front of my eyes. There were even more bills in this envelope. All in two hundred and five hundred euro notes."
At that point, it was decided that the original owner of that furniture had to be traced.
In the end, the police managed to track down a 91-year-old woman from Halle, who had been put in a retirement home after her husband's death, and who appeared to be the owner of the large sums of money. Not even the old lady's nephew knew anything about the money which had been so well hidden and difficult to find inside the furniture units. Thomas did a good deed, however, in reporting his find, and his civic duty ultimately paid off. Indeed, in Germany, keeping the money would have been considered a criminal act.
This "good Samaritan" was then rewarded by been given €4,500 euros, or 3% of the total, as a recompense for handing over the money.
What can we say? If you buy something which is second hand, keep your eyes open!
