Toilet money
October 7, 2009
In October 2006, a man found a bag containing 400,000 euros ($588,000) in the lavatory of one of the high-speed ICE trains travelling between Berlin and Frankfurt.
Instead of jumping off at the next station and booking a direct flight to the Bahamas, the honest pensioner from Wiesbaden handed over the booty to police.
The owner of the money had three years to claim the loot. But that deadline has now passed, and no one has come forward.
Germany's national rail company, Deutsche Bahn (DB), thus gets to keep the money, which it said it would use to set up child-friendly waiting rooms at several major train stations.
DB announced it would give the man who found the bag 25,000 euros for his honesty.
It's not a bad sum, unless you consider that he could have had 16 times that amount.
ca/dpa/AFP/AP
Editor: Nancy Isenson