Today's news: Fare's fair
January 14th 2010 02:52
There are an estimated 13,000 taxis in New York city
The latest involves a 72-year-old Italian tourist named Felicia Lettieri, a young taxi driver named Mukul Asadujjaman, and a large purse containing about US$21,000 in cash, jewellery worth several thousand dollars and some passports.
Asadujjaman, who is a native of Bangladesh and is studying medicine in the US when he isn't driving taxis, found the purse on the back seat of his cab, and inside it found an address for the Italian tourist group of which Ms Lettieri was part. Asadujjaman borrowed a friend's car and drove about 80 kilometres to the address, only to find no-one there. He left his phone number, drove home, was contacted, and drove all the way back to return the purse.
He then declined to accept a reward, saying his Muslim faith prevented him doing so.
In 2007, Osman Chowdhury, another Bangladeshi driving cabs in the US, returned a bag containing diamond rings worth $500,000. He had to track down the owner in Texas.
And in 2008 Mohamed Khalil, of Egyptian background, dropped a passenger at Newark Liberty Airport, and later discovered the passenger had left a violin in the cab. When he tracked down the owner and returned the violin, he learned that the man was Philippe Quint, a world-famous violinist, and that the violin was a Stradivarius, made in 1723, and worth about US$4 million.
As well as a cash reward, Quint gave Khalil a 30-minute private performance and then invited his entire family to Quint's next performance, which was at Carnegie Hall.
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