What would you do if you found $30,000 in a bathroom? Maybe not the same as one Florida man did…
Luis Salavar, 58, got an unexpected surprise after stopping at a Wawa shortly before 9am on May 3 to use the restroom.
At the Riviera Beach location—around an hour north of Miami—he spotted a fanny pack left behind in a stall, hanging from the handicap bar. A police report later noted it contained $30,023 in cash.
Rather than pocketing the money, Luis tried to track down whoever had misplaced it. His efforts didn’t lead anywhere at first, until a formal report was eventually made.
The cash belonged to a 24-year-old who had planned to use it toward medical care for his sister. He later shared that he’d raised the funds by selling his Pokémon collectibles.
Once the man realized the bag was gone, he contacted the Riviera Beach Police Department to report it missing.
“I thought I was absolutely screwed,” the man, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Washington Post.
Investigators later identified Luis through surveillance footage. When they located him a few days afterward, he explained that he’d been attempting to find the owner himself—and then returned the fanny pack, with all the money inside, to the man at the police station.
Luis said he’d initially opened the bag hoping to find identification, but was stunned to see so much cash. He also said he didn’t feel comfortable leaving it to store staff or law enforcement to locate the rightful owner, so he took it upon himself to try and reunite it with the person who lost it.
“$30,000 is great, but it’s not mine to keep,” Luis told the Washington Post. “I like to earn my money.”
“He hugged me,” Luis told ABC7, describing the moment the man was reunited with the bag. “It was not my money to take, I wasn’t raised that way.”
The 24-year-old later described Luis as a ‘lifesaver’ and even offered to take him out for dinner as a thank-you, but Luis declined, saying he didn’t want anything in return.
Police reportedly classified what happened not as a theft, but as ‘lost property’.
As the story spread online, many people applauded Luis for doing the right thing.
“Great that the man who found it didn’t keep it! That’s how it should be. It’s good to know there are people like this man.”
“Things like this make me smile so much that some humans are still good & honest!”