[Photo by Park Sae-jin]
South Korean police have retrieved and returned a suitcase full of cash worth about 225,000 US dollars to a homeless old man, two days after he lost it in a southwestern port city. The man carrying his cash bag has skippered for 15 years.
The man in his 70s reported to police last Saturday that he lost his bag near a community welfare center in Mokpo some 310 kilometers ( 192 miles) southwest of Seoul. A day later, police retrieved the suitcase which was left intact at a nearby parking lot .
TV footages showed the bag packed with a wad of bills worth 250 million won ($225,000), and an unidentified police officer was quoted as saying the man also carried checks worth 200 million won in his pocket.
The man said in a TV interview that he had carried cash with him all along because he suffered from an obsession that someone would steal his money. He did not trust his family and even bank officials.
He told investigators that the incredible amount of money came from selling adult sex toys while roaming about the country. "He never opened an account at a bank in his life. He carried cash with him all along, exchanging cash to check back and forth," an investigator in Mokpo was quoted as saying.
Police got in touch with the man's family and asked his son to take him back home with his cash exchanged into checks to prevent a robbery.
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
