A mall security guard in the city of Ufa found 1.5 million roubles (about $40.000)… and returned the money to its owner, Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reports.
It was just an hour before the end of Dinar Mukhametyanov’s shift when he saw a suspicious bag lying on the ground near the parking lot.
At first he suspected it could be a bomb, but there was a greater shock in store for the 25-year-old.
”I gently opened the bag… and nearly fainted – it was full of money! Real money! There were one thousand notes, five thousand notes and 500 rubles notes, and a pack of Euros… I’ve never seen so much money in my whole life!” Dinar said.
But the young man, a decorated Chechen war veteran who was awarded a medal for bravery, never was tempted to keep the find for himself.
He took the money to the security guards’ office, as were his orders. After the money was counted, it was found that there were 1.5 million roubles in the bag – Dinar’s salary for 17 years of work.
The absent-minded owner of the bag appeared at the mall the next morning. He managed to describe its content and had his money returned to him.
The bag’s owner didn’t have a chance to thank Dinar in person, as the guard’s shift has ended, but left a reward for him – a smaller sum of 5.000 roubles (around $150).
Opinions posted on the Komsomolskaya Pravda website showed visitors divided fifty-fifty.
Some called Dinar stupid and a loser, but the rest disagreed.
“The guy did well. Temptation was enormous. However, you should understand that the money obtained in this way often brings trouble to the “lucky one”. It’s great that a 25-year-old guy understands this,” one of the readers wrote.
But all agree that the owner of the bag with the money could have given Dinar more compensation for the outstanding performance of his duties.