A Las Vegas cab driver is being praised for turning over a quarter-million dollars found stuffed in a laptop case in the back seat of his taxi.
Adam Woldemarim was cleaning out the back seat of his vehicle last month when he noticed something between the seats, the Las Vegas Journal-Review reported. Woldemarum discovered a black soft laptop case with $221,510 inside, according to the newspaper.
The Ethiopian-born taxi driver, who knows only a little English, immediately called a friend who had driven the cab earlier that day and asked if the money belonged to him.
When he was told that it did not, Woldemarim notified authorities, who later determined that the cash belonged to a man who had won big at the Wynn and had accidentally left the money behind on his way to the airport.
Authorities later called Woldemarim back to their office to meet the man, who has not been identified. He reportedly thanked the cab driver and handed him a $2,000 tip.
Woldemarim's friend, however, said they were surprised that he was not given more for his good deed.
"It would have been nice if my good friend got more money, but I think the most important thing here is that a lot of people think foreign cabdrivers like us abuse tourists or they long haul their customers or we're just here causing problems and we don't belong here," one friend, Alex "Baharu" Alebachew, told the newspaper.
"They never see the good side to us, the honest side. If you can just print that, that would be nice," he said.
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