Limo driver returns B200,000 in “lost luggage’

PHUKET: Airport limousine driver Prateep Seeponnok has been commended for returning almost 200,000 baht worth of cash and goods to their Norwegian owner who had left them in his car.

K. Prateep, accompanied by Phuket Vice-Governor Worapot Rattasima and Tourist Police officers, returned the forgotten luggage to Rolf Bernharn Knobloch yesterday.

K. Prateep told the Gazette that, “At 10 pm on January 29 I drove Mr Knobloch from Phuket International Airport to Patong. After I dropped Mr Knobloch off at The Royal Paradise Hotel, I didn’t realize that he had left his bag in my car, so I drove off and parked beside a shop on the way to my house.

“It was then that I saw a bag, very similar to the car’s interior color and easy to miss, behind the front seat. So I called the Tourist Police and reported it as lost property.”

K. Prateep said he turned the money in because it was the right thing to do, and because he was afraid of being arrested if he kept it.

Inside the bag Tourist Police found two smaller bags containing a brown wallet, a black zip wallet with 658 baht, a passport, 87,000 baht in cash, two airplane tickets, a Visa credit card, a bank card, a European travel insurance card, a Nokia mobile phone and charger, three pens and Norwegian kroner equal to 92,000 baht.

Tourist Police contacted Mr Knobloch and made arrangements to return his luggage.

Mr Knobloch was very appreciative and thanked K. Prateep and the Tourist Police.

K. Prateep was given 1,000 baht as a reward for his honesty.