NYC Cabbie Returns $21K to Passenger

Driver turns down reward from Italian tourist
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 14, 2010 2:33 AM CST
NYC Cabbie Returns $21K to Passenger
Taxi driver Mohammad Asadujjaman talks at his home about returning $21,000 he found in his cab.   (AP Photos/Bebeto Matthews)

Taxi driver Mohammad Asadujjaman says he was just following his mother's advice to always be honest when he went out of his way to find a passenger who left a handbag containing $21,000 in the back seat of his cab. The Bangladesh-born med student ended up making two 50-mile trips to Long Island to reunite his passenger, an Italian grandmother, with her cash, passport, and jewelery, the Guardian reports.

"They were so, so, so happy," the 28-year-old cabbie said of his passenger and her family, whose vacation would have been ruined without his honesty. Asadujjaman says he was never tempted to keep the cash, and declined to accept a reward from the family, saying that he couldn't take it because he is a devout Muslim. "I'm needy but I'm not greedy," he said. "It's better to be honest." (More New York City stories.)

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