Austrian bus driver returns half a million dollars found in bag

VIENNA | Thu Dec 6, 2012 4:56am EST

VIENNA (Reuters) - A Vienna bus driver who found a bag with 390,000 euros ($509,700) in cash inside handed the money over to police, who tracked down the elderly woman who had inexplicably left her fortune behind.

The driver, identified by the Vienna transport authority only as Wolfgang R, was inspecting his vehicle at the end of the line when he found the bag in a seat behind the driver's.

"At first I thought it was shopping or medicine," the Krone newspaper quoted him as saying. However, when he opened the bag he found a collection of 500-euro notes staring back at him.

Police in the Austrian capital used a bank deposit slip inside the bag to trace the owner. There was no word on whether the woman had given the honest driver a reward.

($1 = 0.7652 euros)

(Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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