Woman meets good samaritan who returned $10,000 she lost on subway

Lauren Holter

A New York City retiree was praised last month for turning in a Chanel purse containing $10,000 he found on the subway, and on Thursday he met the woman whose cash he recovered.

“Richard is an extremely honest person, and what he’s done changed [my] perception of how people live in the United States,” the woman, Aiya Tulemaganbetova, said through a translator, per CBS New York.

Tulemaganbetova lost her purse before going to visit family in Kazakhstan and told reporters Thursday that she didn’t think she’d ever see the money again. But Richard Taverna took the purse to the 20th Precinct the morning after he discovered it at the West 66th Street and Broadway subway station last month, as NBC New York reports.

The police were apparently shocked when he told them what was inside. He told NBC New York that he first simply told the officers that he’d found a bag on the subway.

“Then I said, ‘Oh. and by the way, it has $10,000 in it,'” he explained, adding that an officer turned and said, “‘Sarge! Come here!'”

Tulemaganbetova said she had taken out the money to buy gifts for her family, since it’s easier to take out cash in the U.S. than in Kazakhstan. She presented Taverna with a statue from Kazakhstan to thank him for his honesty, as well as donated $1,000 to a children’s charity in his name, Spectrum News NY1 reports.

“I think you gotta do the right thing, you know. I mean, it wasn’t mine and if I kept it and spent it, I wouldn’t have felt good about it,” Taverna said Thursday, per CBS. “So it was for me a no-brainer and probably for most people. I truly think most people would have turned it in.”

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