A 81-year-old man who reported losing a holdall stuffed full with £70,000 in foreign currency on a Heathrow to Hampshire National Express coach service is due to be reunited with his cash after it was found at the airport.
The elderly gentleman believed he’d lost the money at some point during the coach trip after leaving the bag containing the cash in the luggage compartment of the bus. However after the loss was reported to police, they checked the CCTV images taken from when the man boarded the coach and found that the black holdall was never placed on the vehicle.
With this evidence, the police were able to isolate the search to Heathrow Airport where the passengers had landed on a flight from Thailand on the day of the incident. The gentleman had brought the money, in Thai baht and Australian Dollar currency, to the UK with a view to purchasing a property here.
The police issued a warning to all shop keepers and banks between Heathrow and Hampshire to be wary of anyone looking to exchange or pay for goods with large amounts of foreign currency after there were initial suspicions that the money had been stolen from the coach service.
The black holdall was later tracked down by police at the airport, and they have confirmed it matches the description of the one reported missing on the National Express service. The authorities say they are making plans to reunite the 81-year-old with his lost cash.
