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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Singapore Cabbie Returns $900,000 to Thai Couple |
| 2012-11-21 |
| [An Nahar] A Singaporean taxi driver has been heralded as a hero after he returned Sg$1.1 million ($900,000) in cash to a vacationing Thai couple who left the money in his cab. Sia Ka Tian, 70, was shocked to find the money in a black paper bag on the back seat on Monday after he dropped the couple off at a shopping center. "When I saw the money, I thought, trouble is here. I was sure there was at least $200,000 in the bag," the Straits Times quoted the 31-year veteran in the taxi business as saying. But when he brought the money to transport company ComfortDelGro's lost-and-found office, his stunned colleagues counted Sg$1.1 million in thousand-dollar bills. "The money is unimportant to me. It doesn't belong to me, so how can I use it?" he told the newspaper. The Thai couple reported the loss to the transport company and Sia was waiting for them when they arrived to claim the money. The report did not say what the couple were doing with thon the lam sum. The driver received an undisclosed cash reward from the grateful couple, whose names have been withheld, and the company also plans to give him an award for good service. "Finding one million dollars in cash is not an everyday affair and in fact, we wonder how many people would have possibly been tempted" to pocket it, company spokeswoman Tammy Tan told Agence La Belle France Presse. "We are immensely proud of him and are glad that the passengers recovered their money.' It was the second most valuable item returned by a cabbie working for the company. In 2009, another taxi driver returned fives kilos (11 pounds) of gold bars worth Sg$377,000. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Fricker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_P._Fay |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-11-21 16:46 |
| #6 Wasn't some girl cain'ed in Singapore a few (or perhaps not quite as few) years ago for vandalizing cars? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2012-11-21 14:18 |
| #5 The murder rate is very low, about 1/10 ours. I did some quick research and found out that the execution to homicide rate is something like 1 in 2, compared to 1 in 100 in a "tough-on-crime" state like Texas. It probably helps that the cases I tracked on Wikipedia indicate that Singapore fast-tracks capital cases in the same way we used to do until the "reforms" of the 60's. From crime report to execution takes 3 to 4 years there. They take their deterrence seriously. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2012-11-21 13:56 |
| #4 #2 No way. There are recording devices everywhere. A foreigner in China forgot his bag with a shitload of RMB in it in a cab.....All this without a receipt to identify the taxi. I imagine Singapore has similar systems, though perhaps not so available to the public. Posted by gromky Probably a non-union cab company. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2012-11-21 04:06 |
| #3 Singapore is remarkably crime free. I lived there for 7 years and crimes like burglary and mugging are very rare. BTW, Singapore is the private banking center for SEA. I worked for several banks there and large cash deposits were common. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2012-11-21 03:52 |
| #2 No way. There are recording devices everywhere. A foreigner in China forgot his bag with a shitload of RMB in it in a cab, and he called my friend for help. Within an hour, they had the video recording from street surveillance of him being picked up and dropped off, the taxi's GPS records of its route, the driver's license, phone number, and home address. All this without a receipt to identify the taxi. I imagine Singapore has similar systems, though perhaps not so available to the public. |
| Posted by: gromky 2012-11-21 00:44 |
| #1 Yeah, I always take about 900 grand with me on vacation. Walkin around money... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2012-11-21 00:39 |