The Japanese Central bank has finished appraising yen banknote and agreed to exchange all of these unusual banknotes with no surcharges for Huynh Thi Anh Hong, a scrap dealer in Ho Chi Minh City who found ¥5mn fortune in junk, said Maritime Bank on October 20.
The amount will be exchanged into Vietnamese dong for Hong if she required. Maritime Bank also covered all charges related to appraise process as Hong is so needy and will soon send her 1.16 million yen.
Huynh Thi Anh Hong, a scrap dealer from the central province of Quang Ngai who boards in Tan Binh District in HCMC, bought a dumped pair of loudspeakers from a man in Tan Binh District for VND100,000 ($4.6) in November 2013 without knowing there was a huge amount of cash inside.
She only discovered the fortune when dismantling the devices later and quickly turned the money to Tan Binh police, who later ran public announcements to find the owner of the money.
The rule was that if no one showed up after a year, Hong would be able to claim it.
Yet a woman named Pham Thi Ngot came to the police and claimed the money belonged to her South African husband. After verification, Tan Binh police rejected Ngot’s groundless claim, and also found out that her husband used fake papers to work in Vietnam.
However, staffs of Maritime Bank discovered 116 of the banknotes, or 1.16 million yen of 5.24 million yen, were in poor conditions and unusable. The bank helped Hong to transfer the unusual banknotes to Japanese bank for appraising without collecting fee from her.
