Sia Ka Tian, Singapore Taxi Driver, Returns $900,000 To Thai Couple

A taxi driver in Singapore received commendation and a reward after he turned in a black paper bag containing about $900,000 worth of cash he found in the backseat of his cab.

Sia Ka Tian, 70, who has worked as a taxi driver for more than 30 years, said he had no desire to hold onto the mysterious windfall.

“The money is unimportant to me. It doesn’t belong to me, so how can I use it?” Sia told the Straits Times.

According to Agence France-Presse, Sia found the bag after dropping off a vacationing Thai couple at a shopping center Monday. He knew there was a lot of money in it, but he did not bother to count exactly how much.

Instead, he immediately turned it in to the lost-and-found office at his employer, ComfortDelGro transport company. Employees there were shocked to find Sg. $1.1 million in the paper bag. The Thai couple reported their loss to ComfortDelGro, and Sia was waiting for them when they arrived to claim their cash.

This isn't the first time a cab driver has turned in a large sum of money. In October, Adam Woldemariam, a Las Vegas taxi driver, returned a laptop case stuffed with more than $221,000 in casino winnings to its owner, who then gave the cabbie a $2,000 "tip" as a reward, ABC News reports.

In 2009, a driver for the same Singaporean cab company turned in 11 lbs. of gold bars worth $377,000, according to Yahoo News.

In 2011, a Colorado man turned in $10,000 that he found at a Las Vegas airport because he wanted to show his children it was "the right thing to do," according to the Associated Press.