Jobless man returns cash, gold to owner
Bag contained $14,000 in cash, jewellery worth Dh200,000
Imagine having lost your job and finding a bag full of cash and gold. What would you do? Your first thought will be to keep the unexpected windfall, but that was not what Indian expatriate Retesh James Gupta did.
The Dubai-based banker Gupta returned a bag containing $14,000 (Dh51,492) in cash, gold jewellery worth Dh200,000 and three American passports to its owner.
His honesty did not go unrewarded. Not only did Dubai Police honour him, he also got a job offer from a bank soon after the incident. “I believe this was my reward from God in difficult times as I got a good job offer while many others are losing theirs. My family and friends are proud of me,” he said.
Brigadier Yousuf Abdullah Salim Al Adidi, Director of Al Ghusais Police Station, honoured Gupta with a certificate of appreciation last week.
“Keeping the bag never crossed my mind and there were no second thoughts about returning it to its owner,” Gupta told Gulf News.
How he found the bag
Gupta’s gesture carries even more significance because he found the ‘treasure’ just a week after he lost his job.
The incident happened a few months ago when Gupta, who
I did not know how to find the owner of the bag so I called my wife and told her the whole story. She immediately told me to go to the police station. She said it was ‘God testing us during these difficult times. So don’t fail [to return it]’.”
Retesh James Gupta | Indian banker
lives in Dubai with his wife Aparupa Ganguly and their three-year-old son Vivaan Aiden, visited a salon in Al Ghusais near the Metro station around 10.30pm. When he returned to his car, he found a backpack on the bonnet. He waited for about 30 minutes for someone to come and claim the bag, but no one turned up.
He then decided to open the bag to check for contact details, but was stunned. “There were stacks of US dollars and a lot of gold jewellery. I also found three American passports,” he said.
Wife to the rescue
Gupta went inside the Metro station to hand over the bag to the policeman there, but he could not find anyone on duty.
“I did not know how to find the owner of the bag so I called my wife and told her the whole story. Instead of being excited, she immediately told me to go to the police station. She said it was ‘God testing us during these difficult times. So don’t fail [to return it]’,” he said.
Gupta drove to Al Ghusais Police Station and handed the bag over to the officer on duty, who took his contact details and thanked him.
The next day, Gupta got a call from the owner of the bag. His name was Boby Hameed, a Bangladeshi American. “He thanked me repeatedly for my honesty. I could not meet him because he was travelling back to the US. He had come to Dubai with his family to visit his parents, who have been living here for the last 45 years,” he said.