A taxi driver from Granadilla de Abona in the south of Tenerife, was preparing to pick up two clients from the taxi rank at the Reina Sofia airport, when he noticed an unattended backpack that everyone seemed to be ignoring.
Juan Francisco Dorta, who has been a driver for over 20 years, was at the airport at 4pm on Sunday during its busiest time at the weekend when he spotted the bag, and went to find out who’s it was and whether someone in the queue had left it by mistake.
Dorta explained to Diario De Avisos “I asked the guys that I was picking up if it was theirs and they said no, so I went over to a group of seven people who were in the queue, who were about to get into a colleague's taxi, and they also told me that it was not theirs. After asking several others I took the bag and put it under the back seats of the car so that someone didn’t take it.”
Juanfran, as the 46-year-old is known to his colleagues, made several trips that afternoon from the airport to Playa de Las Américas and completely forgot the denim gray bag was there, however, the next morning at breakfast in a café in San Isidro with other drivers, they started talking about a story in the news about a missing backpack that contained a lot of money and some important papers.
It was at this point that Juan told his friends that he had the bag, explaining, “I went to the car, took it out, reached in and pulled out, I don't know how many, 100 euro bills. I got straight in my car and went to the Guardia Civil station at the airport, where officers were already looking for the bag and were about to check the airport security cameras”.
Once in the Guardia Civil base, the agents verified that inside the bag there was 10,380 euros, in 100, 50, 20 and 5 euro notes, in addition to a women's wallet with documentation, and the deeds of a property. Asked about the owner of the backpack, the taxi driver confirmed that he is "an 81-year-old German cardiologist who has come to buy a property."
The owner blamed the mistake on the fact that "he probably left his bag on the ground to get a piece of paper or explain the hotel address to the taxi driver and forgot to pick it up." On receiving his bag, the money and paperwork, the German man said thankyou for your honesty. Juan didn’t receive a tip for his good deed.
