Man found $30,000 in a lost fanny pack and could have walked away — but his next move sent police looking for him
Finding a stack of money can tempt many people into claiming it as their own. But not for this Florida man. Luis Salazar was in the bathroom of a Wawa gas station in Riviera Beach when he noticed a fanny pack hanging on the railing. When he tried to look for identification, he found over $30,000 instead. However, what he did next led him straight to the police station. As reported by WPBF 25 News on May 9, 2026, the owner was left in tears upon learning what Salazar did with his fanny pack.
While anyone could have taken the fanny pack home, Salazar was worried that someone had lost their money. "My body was just numb, just seeing all this money that belonged to somebody else," he remarked. Unfortunately, the person the money belonged to did not realize he had lost the fanny pack until he had driven past Broward County. On the other hand, Salazar spent several days trying to find the owner. The Riviera Beach cops received a complaint from the owner about his missing cash, and they contacted Salazar after reviewing the security footage. He happily returned the money at the police station and stayed until the owner was able to check that all of his cash was there.
A total of $30,023 was recovered, and the owner thanked the Florida man for his kind gesture. In the bodycam footage released by the cops, Salazar is seen saying, "It's not my money to take. I was not raised that way." The owner, who did not wish to be identified, was taken aback by the man's honesty, noting that most people in his position could have easily claimed the money as their own and never reported it. "I guess maybe there's just more good people in the world than most people think. You never know who you'll run into, and Luis is just one of those good people," the owner noted.
An honest person does the right thing even when there is no one else around to notice. In another story, a Pittsburgh postal worker, Bruce Armah, found a wallet buried in the snow. In an attempt to locate the owner, Armah used the address he had found in the wallet. However, the owner had moved 52 miles away. While many people might have stopped looking under those circumstances, Armah went out of his way to track down the owner in freezing -11°F weather to return the wallet. After he returned the money and the other cards inside it, the owner wanted to reward Armah for his thoughtful gesture. Armah revealed that he acted only out of kindness and was not expecting anything in return.