Honest janitor awarded most of $100,000 he found while cleaning

SYDNEY, May 10 (UPI) -- An Australian magistrate ruled that a janitor in Sydney can keep most of the $100,000 in Australian currency he found while cleaning the bathroom of a television station in Sydney. The ruling came three years after Chamindu Amarsinghe found the money in a sanitary bin.

"There was too much to count," Amarsinghe told an Australian news team. "I thought someone was playing a prank on me. But when I touched the notes, all yellow and green, I realized it was real money."

I just thought, 'That's not my money, so I can't take it away. I don't know what the hell this money is doing here.'" He added, "Someone could have put it there and planned to come back for it. I didn't want them to come back for it and find it gone and them come after me.

Despite criminal investigations and charges into the money's origins, little is known of where it came from and no owner has come forward to claim the cash. Unable to determine where the money came from, Magistrate Michael Smith felt it was best left in the hands of the man who found it, saying "There's no reason why such honesty should go unrewarded."

Amarsinghe has moved to New Zealand where he is studying for a career in information technology.

"I just want to spend my life in a normal way, find a job in IT and carry out that dream," he said. "I'm really, really lucky. I'm not going to waste it."

Although unsure what he'll do with the money, Amarsinghe plans to donate a portion of it to the disabled and a portion to a Buddhist temple outside of Melbourne.