An individual handed over a briefcase containing 22 gold bars and €3,500 to Berlin police after finding it under a tree in the city's Neukölln district.
ADVERTISEMENTAn individual handed over a briefcase containing 22 gold bars and €3,500 to Berlin police after finding it under a tree in the city’s Neukölln district.
The police department posted a tweet with a picture of the hoard saying: “Amazing what you can find under a tree in Neukölln.”
Was in #Neukölln so alles unterm Baum liegt…
Ehrlicher Finder gibt Dokumentenmappe mit 3500€ und Gold auf unserem #A55 ab.#Fundbüro
^tsm pic.twitter.com/L7drjlOWWC— Polizei Berlin (@polizeiberlin) July 27, 2017
Thanks to the passerby’s honesty, the briefcase, and more importantly its contents, were returned to their owner.
Berlin police used personal items left inside to track him down.
“The owner has been found. He said he put his things down while locking up his bicycle and then simply forgot about them,” they said.
Weighing in at around a kilogram, the gold bars are worth around €30,000 at the current gold price.
Under current German law, people who return lost items are entitled to 3-5 percent of their value, which in this case would be €2,000.
Berlin authorities also said a “storage fee” of ten percent would be applied.