LAS VEGAS: A Filipino-American taxi driver found a paper bag full of cash here last Monday but promptly turned it over to his employer to prove that “Las Vegas may be a Sin City but is actually an Angel City.”
Gerardo Gamboa, 54, a native of Mabalacat, Pampanga and current Nevada resident, handed the $300,000 (P12.6m) to the Yellow Checker Star cab company, according to the Fil-Am Extra Exchange.
Gamboa was given a $5 tip by the passenger he picked up at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, but who had unknowingly left behind in the taxi a paper bag full of money. He dropped his passenger off at Palm Place Hotel after a five-minute drive, a distance of two miles, the paper said.
When he went to another taxi stand at Bellagio Hotel, its doorman, who hailed Gamboa’s taxi, told him, “There is a bag in (your taxi) full of chocolate.”
When the bag was opened, it turned out to contain bundles of $100 bills totalling $300,000.
An apologetic Gamboa reportedly told the new passenger, “You are my witness. I did not touch anything here.”
When Gamboa informed his employer of the find, he was told to immediately return to headquarters by on-duty supervisor Terry Mast of YCS Yellow, Checker and Star Taxi Group of Companies. The money was counted and audited in front of taxi company officials and later locked in its lost-and-found safety vault.
Hours later, the owner of the cash arrived to claim the money and profusely thanked Gamboa, Fil-Am Extra Exchange said.
The owner turned out to be a world-renowned professional poker player, who had a big night before he hailed Gamboa’s taxi.
The Philippine star
