Turns out you can still count on the kindness of strangers

Charles Pertwee/Bloomberg/Getty Images Taxis wait for passengers at a stand in Singapore

Turns out you can still count on the kindness of strangers.

A Singaporean cabdriver discovered a black paper bag brimming with money in the back of his taxi after dropping off a Thai couple who were on vacation, AFP reports. Seeing the number of Singaporean $1,000 bills in the bag, the cabbie immediately got worried, he told the Straits Times.

“When I saw the money, I thought, trouble is here. I was sure there was at least $200,000 in the bag,” Sia Ka Tian told the newspaper. He turned the money over to his company straightaway.

Turns out the 70-year-old cabbie’s judgment was right, but his math was off — there were actually 1.1 million Singaporean dollars in the bag — about $900,000.

At least the story has a happy ending: the couple who’d lost the money gave the honest cabbie an undisclosed cash reward, and Sia has been touted as a hero.

“The money is unimportant to me,” he told the Straits Times. “It doesn’t belong to me, so how can I use it?”

It is unclear why the couple were carrying such an outrageous sum of cash, but apparently it’s not uncommon among Singapore’s better-heeled visitors. AFP reports that this was the second time that Sia’s company, ComfortDelGro, returned lost items of great value to its passengers. The last time it was 11 lb. of gold bars worth more than $300,000.

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