UPDATE: December 27, 2013: for it: cab driver Gerardo Gamboa had a little merrier Christmas after receiving a $10,000 reward from the mystery poker player to whom the $300,000 in cash belonged, as well as another $1,000 from his employer Yellow Star cab and a $250 dining certificate although they usually say that no good deed goes unpunished, for once, someone who did the right thing has actually gotten rewarded.

Evidently like ransom cash the cash, still bundled in those $5,000 wads, was dropped off at undisclosed location by Mystery Poker Person for Gamboa’s good deed.

Day when you’re a Las Vegas cab driver, you never know who or what will end up in your taxi on any given. So driver that is veteran Gamboa was unfazed each time a Bellagio hotel doorman, opening the cab’s rear home to help a new customer in, noticed a brown paper bag left regarding the chair by the cab’s previous occupant, evidently. He didn’t also bother to check inside once the doorman use it his passenger chair until he got to a light and fascination got the very best of him. Guessing that chocolates lay in wait, he took a peek in, with illicit thoughts in mind should his conjecture be correct.

‘What form of chocolates are they?’ Gamboa pondered. ‘Are they ones that are good I really could buy some for my wife as a present?’

Sweet, Not Candy

But there have been no chocolates inside when Gamboa started that small bag that is brown instead, there had been cash. And by cash, we mean…cash. To be exact: $300,000 worth in $100 bills, all nicely bundled. Which probably weighs a bit more than chocolates, Mr. Gamboa; and maybe after 13 years in town, a brown paper case should set some alarms off, but hey, maybe that’s just us.

After notifying his dispatcher of the cache, Gamboa took it to their employer’s Yellow Checker Star Transportation head office but not we assume was unaware of the celebrity package riding shotgun in the passenger seat up front before he dropped off his current passenger, who.

Now once more, phone us cynical, but we might have assumed this kind of large sum of cash in an innocuous brown paper bag had been destined for payoff of some dubious merchandise. But Mr. Gamboa is apparently more trusting than we are, and after turning the cash up to Yellow Checker Star, cops were called in and somehow, the owner was discovered, via some good ol’ fashioned gumshoe techniques.

Retracking His Route

It seems Gamboa recalled dropping off a passenger he had picked up at Cosmopolitan, with the destination that is final a Palms Place tower; he also remembered that this passenger had left him a $5 tip for the ride. Immediately after, he headed to the Bellagio cab line, in which the resort’s doorman had noticed the backseat cash stash bag merely a few minutes before noon.

Including drama to your situation, someone mysteriously turned up at the Yellow Star offices to claim the bag, but had no ID, nor was he anyone to whom Cosmopolitan had apparently tracked a outgoing repayment of this exact $300,000. Naturally, this is when Metro was called in to assist and sort it all out.

In the end, it was determined that what could have appeared as if drug money was actually the home of a famous poker player who Metro refused to publicly determine. Yes, we are dying of curiosity too.

‘ This is the largest amount we are finding within my 32 years in this business,’ said Yellow Checker Star chief running officer Bill Shranko. ‘Recently, we found $9,000, but that’s no longer a big deal.’

Although Gamboa had apparently considered diving into some chocolate, he states he never considered stealing any of the cash that is bagged.

‘Even though i will be a bad guy I do not need money that does not belong to me,’ said Gamboa, who’s been a Sin City resident for 27 years. ‘Tomorrow, I return back working.’

We hope the poker that is unnamed will release only a little bankroll and show some appreciation to 1 of nevada’ truthful citizens.

A driver for another cab company also returned $222,000 that was left in his cab by a passenger although this find was the largest, last year.