Scrapped Safe Yields $128,000 in Spoils

The unusual occurrence took place at a steel processing plant, not far from the German capital, Berlin. Workers who were moving a safe for recycling discovered some 100,000 euros ($128,000) inside, but, instead of keeping the money, like most would have done, they exhibited a high sense of civic duty and contacted the bank that had sent them the safe. Shortly after, they returned the whole sum, and received the praise of the financial institution, which had already marked the money as disappeared.

Apparently, an employee at the German Postbank was responsible for the mishap, having failed to thoroughly search the safe before sending it to the scrapyard. A press release from the financial institution, delivered by spokesman Ralf Palm, said that "the carelessness of an employee when a branch office moved in December" was responsible for the situation at the time, but didn't fail to mention the integrity and honesty of the workers who found the money.

In most of these plants, the wages are not very high, and, should the employees have decided to keep the money, there would have been nothing authorities could have done to prove that they were responsible for, or even demonstrate that there was a theft. Furthermore, bank documents showed that the vault was officially empty, so no legal basis for a trial existed either.

This makes the actions of these men even more commendable, bank officials say, and shows their strength of character and good-will. Up until this point, the bank has not yet revealed what fund the cash were a part of, but, most likely, their return will make a lot of people happy. It's not often that workers laboring under the most intense conditions come across such a large sum of money and then return it, so it's really refreshing to see that morals and decency still linger on in the roughest places.