Honest Thai Cab Driver Rewarded After Returning $80,000 in Gold and Cash to Passenger

The passenger, 58-year-old gold shop owner, Patcharee Saelim, reportedly left gold and cash worth almost THB 3 million (over $80,000) inside the Bangkok taxi yesterday.

Saelim immediately notified the local authorities after she noticed that her fabric bag containing THB 255,000 cash and two kilograms of gold rings and necklaces worth THB 2,595,000 were nowhere to be found. Convinced that she left her bag in an orange cab that she rode in Petchabun province at around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, Saelim urged the local cops to look for the driver via CCTV footage, reported Coconuts Bangkok.

Bang Sue police found the driver, identified as Samart Ngernthong, who claimed that Saelim still had her suitcase and fabric bag when she vacated his taxi. He remembered, however, that he transferred the woman to another cab since he didn’t know how to reach her requested destination.

Fortunately for everyone, the police didn’t need to look for the driver as he himself had reached out to the authorities after finding the valuables in his car. The second driver, 34-year-old Withit Daungjumphol, voluntarily reached out to the police the following day to surrender the missing items.

The forgetful passenger did not think twice in rewarding Withit with a large sum of money. She gave the honest cabbie THB 100,000 in cash (around $2,810), and then donated THB 30,000 ($843) to a local charity. Withit also donated THB 10,000 to the same charity.

A separate incident in Phuket saw another trustworthy taxi driver who returned THB 100,000 ($2,810) to a tourist from Italy on the very same day.