A purported owner of 5 million yen worth of cash left inside a loudspeaker sold last year to a scrap dealer in Ho Chi Minh City suddenly appeared to claim the fortune on Monday, one day before a year-long search for its owner is scheduled to end.
>> An audio version of the story is available here
The quest for the real owner of the money, equal to some US$41,700, has been a tough task for Ho Chi Minh City police, after they received a report from Huynh Thi Anh Hong, who discovered the fortune among the scraps she bought in January 2014.
Hong left the parcel of JPY10,000 banknotes untouched following her discovery, and ended up handing over it to police in Tan Binh District two months later.
Tan Binh police then encouraged the real owner of the money to show up and prove their ownership to claim the fortune by April 28, 2015, after which Hong may be rewarded the right to own the money.
The scrap dealer was almost there when a woman named Pham Thi Ngot turned up at the Tan Binh police station, asking to get her money back.
Ngot, 40, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Monday the money belongs to her husband, South African national Afolayan Caleb, who managed to save up a huge sum of money during his time working in Japan between 2003 and 2005.
Caleb met Ngot during his trip to Vietnam in 2009, and the two moved in together in a rent house in the outlying district of Hoc Mon, the woman, who now runs a fashion company, recalled.
The husband later told his wife that he had concealed around 6 million yen in cash in a box, a book or a closet among the stuff he brought from Japan to their rent house. The problem is he does not remember the exact hidden place.
The two had tried to search for the money several times but eventually found nothing.
In November 2013, Ngot gave away a set of computer speakers, which she left unused on the corridor of her house, to one of her cousins, named H., without knowing that the money was hidden in the device, she told Tuoi Tre.
A fortnight later, H. dumped the speakers as they were out of order. A scarp dealer whose face was covered with mask then asked to buy the speakers. H. then gave them to her.
Ngot said she only knew of the story of a scrap dealer discovering 5 million yen inside a loudspeaker when reading Tuoi Tre Online last month.
“It was not until then when I remembered the lost money,” she said.
“I know for sure the money Hong discovered belongs to my husband, so I reported to Tan Binh police on April 3.”
Police and Tan Binh People’s Court have requested that Ngot ask her husband, who left for Nigeria in June 2013, to file an application to claim the lost fortune.
Ngot is also required to make a detailed report as to how her husband had concealed the money, as well as evidence proving her ownership of the money.
Knowing that the search of the owner of the money would end on April 28, Ngot called on police on April 24to delay the deadline so that she would have time to notify her husband in Nigeria.
Ngot said her husband would come to Vietnam to settle the issue, or authorize her to do so if he cannot make the trip.
“I guarantee all what I said is true,” she said.
Troubled discovery
Tan Binh police have indeed extended the deadline to end the ownership search for the fortune.
As for Hong, the scrap dealer who found the money, the fortune discovery would only bring her troubles.
“Ngot has asked me to meet her and her cousin but I tell them to work with the police as I have no dispute with her,” Hong told Tuoi Tre.
Hong said she may return to her hometown to relax for a while after being repeatedly annoyed by those who want to claim the fortune.
“I have received many texts and phone calls asking me to return to money to Japanese government and they would pay me back some money and find me a good job,” she recalled.
“But I turned all such requests down.”
Judge Nguyen Van Tri, from the Tan Binh People’s Court, said Ngot must have adequate proof for her ownership of the money.
If she fails to do so, the fortune will belong to Hong, said lawyer Nguyen Van Hau.
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