Pattaya, Thailand:
An Indian tourist has thanked a Pattaya motorcycle taxi driver who found his lost wallet containing about 16,000 baht in cash and personal documents and turned it over to police within minutes. The owner later gave the driver 2,000 baht as a token of appreciation.
The wallet was found at about 11 p.m. on October 2nd by Prasit Srimongkol, 40, a motorcycle taxi driver based near the entrance of Soi 10 on Pattaya Beach. After dropping off a passenger in the Soi 6 area, he stopped to meet a friend and spotted a brown wallet in a drainage channel behind the Ket Ngam Shrine at the mouth of Soi 6.
Inside were documents naming the owner as Mr. Vinay Kumar, an Indian national, along with roughly 16,000 baht in cash. Prasit did not keep the money. He took the wallet straight to Pol. Lt. Col. Supakit Kontee, deputy investigation inspector at Pattaya City Police Station, and asked officers to trace the owner quickly.
Around 11:30 p.m., Mr. Vinay arrived at the station with a Thai female friend to collect the wallet after learning police had received it. He said he had been walking along Pattaya Beach with his friend earlier that evening and had headed back toward his accommodation without noticing the wallet was missing. He only learned it had been found when he was contacted, and then went to the station at once.
Prasit said that once he realized the wallet belonged to a foreign tourist and held both cash and important papers, he handed it to police immediately, worried the owner would face serious trouble if the items were lost.
The return left a strong impression on the tourist and was described by those involved as a reflection of local honesty in Pattaya, where residents chose to hand over found property, including cash and personal documents, rather than keep it.