A cleaner who discovered £50,000 stuffed inside a sanitary bin was left gobsmacked after he was rewarded for his honesty. Chamindu Amarsinghe was at a TV company's building in Melbourne, Australia, when he found the hidden stash while cleaning a ground floor bathroom, the Mirror reports.
Despite being a "struggling" student, he immediately contacted his bosses about the find before police were called and the money was handed over. Speaking of the incident, Chamindu said: "There was too much to count — I thought someone was playing a prank on me. But when I touched the notes — all yellow and green — I realised it was real money.”
Police and a plumber later pulled out an additional £935 from the pipes around the toilet. The honest worker said his first thought after the shock discovery was to notify the authorities.
He said: "I just thought, 'That's not my money, so I can't take it away. I don't know what the hell this money is doing here’. Someone could have put it there and planned to come back for it. I didn't want them to come back for it and find it gone and them come after me."
Police immediately began investigating how the cash had ended up there and were able to connect the currency to a man called Emerald Nguyen in Sydney. He was charged over the proceeds of crime in relation to the mystery cash haul but the charges were later dropped.
Nguyen also signed a notice of abandonment which declared he had no part to play in the cash being there. After the money was still not claimed after three years, Chamindu was told by magistrate Michael Smith that he was granted permission to keep £40,000 worth of the money with the rest going to the state.
Smith said: “There’s no reason why such honesty should go unrewarded.” The lucky cleaner was over the moon with his reward and said the money was a "blessing". He added: "I just want to spend my life in a normal way, find a job in IT and carry out that dream."
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