CAIRO – A Muslim taxi driver has set an excellent example of honesty after returning a bag a passenger left on the back seat of his car containing £10,000 in cash.

“I was walking across the car park when I realized I hadn’t got my bag and I panicked. I tried to flag down another taxi but they all had fares,” the passenger, Adrian Quinn, told Daily Mail.

“I was sick. My body just went into shut-down and I didn’t know what to do. I was just in a daze. If I’d lost that bag it would have been the end of my business.

“We have built it up from nothing for the last nine years and we are sole traders. We don’t have the backing of banks. It is hard work, but it earns us a living.”

Mohammed Nisar, 55, had been driving sole trader Quinn to Walsall train station when the passenger hopped out of the vehicle in a rush, forgetting his rucksack.

Quinn has just cashed a check from his inheritance after the death of his mother. On realizing his mistake says he felt ‘dazed’.

“Losing that money would have been the end of my business. I was physically sick!” Quinn, 46, of Hereford, said.

Returning to taxi rank, the father-of-three found Nisar sitting in his car with the bag safely on the passenger seat.

“I was very emotional. I said, “Do you know what was in that bag? Put it this way, it is not a box of sandwiches or a newspaper. There is £10,000 in there,” he said.

Finding no words to thank the honest driver, Quinn gave Mohammed a cash reward in an envelope marked ‘to my best friend in the world’ and has even invited him and his wife to his home for a family meal.

“He nearly had a heart attack, he was really worried!” Mohammed said.

“He came up to me and asked if I realized what was in the bag. He was very, very thankful. He had just bought a car but forgot the bag full of money.”

Honesty

This is not the first time for Nisar, who has been a self-employed taxi driver for 15 years, to find things in the back of his car.

Only two years ago one passenger left a wallet containing £150 in, but Mohammed drove straight back to the man’s home to return it.

“At the end of the day honesty is the best policy. There are some drivers who don’t return things but what is the point?” Mohammed said.

“If the council had not have called me and no-one had have claimed it after 12 or 24 hours I would have taken that bag straight to the police station.

“Mobile phones are the most common thing left behind but most of them now can be traced anyway.

“My message is to encourage all my taxi driving brothers that if they find something valuable just give it back.”