A man has been praised after finding 25 000 euros (about R512 000|GH¢157,590 ) in a second-hand chest of drawers and returning the cash to the family from whom he purchased the piece.
Petar Gavran (22), originally from Croatia, needed a chest of drawers to furnish his new flat in Germany.
He spotted an advertisement online and bought the furniture. He visited the seller’s house in the Werden borough of the city of Essen to pick up the cupboard with a friend.
“When a friend and I came for the furniture, we didn’t notice anything strange. Even the man we bought the furniture from helped us carry it to the car because it’s massive,” he said.
“It was only on the staircase of my building that I noticed something rolling inside the dresser,” he said.
In the flat he opened the drawers and found family photo albums along with envelopes stuffed with cash.
“The family albums weren’t so shocking, but the money inside . . . tens of thousands of euros!” he said.
“I thought they were kidding me, like they sold me a dresser, so now they tease me with envelopes with the money they left behind. One was partially torn, so I gently opened it and pulled it out, held it up to the light and saw that it was real,” he said.
Petar took some time to decide what to do with the cash, worried that it might be somehow connected to a crime.
Eventually, he called the people he bought the furniture from, and told them about the family albums.
They asked him to return the albums, and when he went to their house hoping to also ask questions, he realised they didn’t know about the cash.
The chest of drawers had belonged to a deceased relative whose furniture they were selling.
“They live in the countryside and the apartment is family-owned. They started selling things now,” he said.
“There was no chance for me to keep the money, I couldn’t use it, I wouldn’t find happiness with it, it would be unhappy money for me,” he said.
The family “rewarded” Petar for his honesty but he didn’t specify what the reward was.