You'd think that finding more than £10,000 in cash, in a bag next to a cash machine, and returning it to its rightful owners would be applauded. But for one man, all that it resulted in was a £300 fine.
Robert Adams, 54, saw the bag full of money next to a cash machine with Chase Bank's logo on the side. Instead of taking advantage, the resident of Arlington Heights, Illinois, returned it to the bank in question.
But he made a mistake, by giving police false information about exactly where he found it.
Adams found the large sum of cash on the night of 6 June while using an ATM inside the shop Walgreens. He had planned to meet a woman for a date, but when she failed to show decided to buy a drink before heading home.
Instead of handing in the money in the area where he found it, Adams took it to a police station nearer to his home where he said he felt more comfortable speaking to local police in familiar surroundings.
"I didn't want to go back into Walgreens, so I thought I would drive to the Chase Bank near my house and return it," he told the Southtown Star in the US.
But thinking it would result in fewer questions, Adams told the bank — and the police — that he'd found the money near his home not in the shop.
The error cost him $500 (£312).
Of course, leaving that sort of cash just lying about is a concern for any bank. So they, the security firm that lost the money and the police started to look into it. What they discovered was that Adams had lied about where he found the cash.
He was captured on CCTV picking up the money, leaving the shop and getting into his car, and then charged with lying in a police report — resulting in his fine.
"I accept the fine. I'm very sorry about this whole thing," Adams told the Chicago Tribune. He was never offered a reward for returning the cash.
