A Lucky Find!

Man reunited with £20,000 briefcase

Allan Karlsson may have started a new life for himself after finding a suitcase stuffed with cash in the bestselling book The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared.

But when Chinese man Wei Chou, 52, forgot the suitcase at the train station at Zibo in east China's Shandong province filled with 217,000RMB (20,000 GBP) in bank notes, he was certain that the finder would also quickly do a disappearing act.

Wei contacted police, and by the time they got to the train it had already arrived at the station and the passengers had disembarked. Yet incredibly, the suitcase that was not even locked had not been touched - and all the money was still inside.

Wei said: "I couldn't believe it. Those were all my savings and I thought it would be gone for ever. I thought nobody would ever hand it in if they found the money.

"I made a careless mistake and in future I will make sure I do not carry such large amounts of money on public transport with me. It could have been a very costly mistake."

A police spokesman said: "The train had been packed but the man was in one of the sleeper carriages which generally have less passengers inside. Nevertheless he was very lucky that nobody decided to make off with the suitcase."