The incident occurred in one of the restaurants. The man left his backpack there; it contained, among other things, passports and more than €1,500 in cash. When he realized in the morning that he did not have his luggage with him, he immediately notified officers from the District Police Headquarters in Złotoryja.
Surveillance quickly identified a suspect
Officers began establishing the circumstances of the incident. Surveillance footage proved crucial: based on it, police quickly identified the woman who had taken the abandoned backpack.
Instead of handing the found item to the restaurant staff or reporting its discovery to the police, the woman took the luggage with her.
The case took an unexpected turn later that same day. The 53-year-old came to the police headquarters herself, claiming that she had found the backpack and wanted to return it. However, she denied that it had contained money and documents. In her view, the backpack had been empty. The police did not believe this version.
They found the passports in a stroller; she hid the euros in her underwear
The officers, who already knew what had happened at the restaurant, carefully verified the woman’s account.
During activities involving the stroller operated by the 53-year-old, police discovered the passports belonging to the victim.
But the search did not end there. The officers also found the missing cash. The woman had hidden the euro banknotes in her underwear.
Thanks to the police officers’ actions, both the documents and more than €1,500 belonging to the backpack’s owner were recovered.
The woman was detained
The 53-year-old resident was detained and taken to police custody. She is expected to be charged soon with misappropriating found property. This offense carries a penalty of up to three years in prison.
Police also remind the public that finding someone else’s property does not grant the right to keep it. Anyone who finds valuable items or documents should take steps to return them to their owner or hand them over to the appropriate lost-and-found office or the nearest police unit.
In this case, the victim’s prompt report, analysis of the surveillance footage and the officers’ persistence made it possible to recover both the documents and a substantial amount of money.