Vietnam’s railway attendants dig through trash to recover gold jewelry for passenger

According to Vietnam Railways, the first incident occurred on Thursday evening, aboard SE5 train traveling from Hanoi.

When the train arrived at Dong Hoi Station, a passenger in car No. 9 reported that she had accidentally thrown away a pair of gold earrings and a gold necklace wrapped in tissue paper into a trash bag that had just been removed from the train.

Upon receiving the report at 7:27 pm, train attendants immediately informed the chief conductor, who assigned staff to search through all trash bags that had been taken off the train at Dong Hoi Station.

Despite checking multiple bags, the team initially failed to locate the missing jewelry.

As the train was due to depart, SE5 continued its journey.

The train crew and the passenger conducted another search inside the carriage.

During this second effort, attendant Le Thi Minh Quyen discovered a trash bag still on board that contained the missing gold earrings and necklace, wrapped in tissue paper and mixed with other waste.

The jewelry was promptly returned to the owner, Nguyen Thi Bac H., who held a ticket for berth No. 25 in car No. 9.

The passenger expressed deep gratitude and appreciation for the dedication and honesty of the train attendants and crew, saying she was relieved to recover the valuable items she had accidentally discarded.

In a separate incident, at around 5:15 am on Friday, after SE3 train from Hanoi arrived at Saigon Station and passengers had disembarked, attendant Le Thanh Phuong, responsible for car No. 6, discovered a black women’s handbag left inside a pillowcase at berth No. 18.

The attendant immediately reported the find to the train chief and security staff.

Upon inspection, the handbag was found to contain a small black wallet holding about VND4.5 million (US$170), along with $484 in cash.

The bag also contained personal identification documents and 13 bank cards.

Based on the documents and ticket booking information, the train crew identified the owner as Le Thi Kim O., who had purchased a ticket for berth No. 1 in car No. 6 and traveled on SE3 from Nha Trang in Khanh Hoa Province to Ho Chi Minh City.

The crew contacted the passenger and safely returned the handbag and all its contents to her at Saigon Station on Friday morning.