It may have seemed like a surprise Christmas present when millions of Hong Kong dollars were strewn onto one of the island’s busiest road following a lorry crash on December 24.

But police are appealing to the dozens of bystanders who pocketed the banknotes to return them saying failure to so was a “serious crime.”

The van belonging to a security company dropped three boxes of banknotes totaling 35m Hong Kong dollars (3.5m Euros.)