guard with Aviation Logistics and Management Limited (ALML) on Saturday morning
returned the sum of $3,338 (about N1,218,370) of a passenger on Virgin Atlantic
Airways flight to London Heathrow at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport
(MMIA), Lagos.
The money, which was in two separate envelopes, was left
behind by Frank Abenemi, a passenger with Virgin Atlantic after going through
profiling at the counters of the airline.
Akilo, however, discovered the
envelopes when he was clearing the check-in counters of the airline after the
closure of boarding at around 8:35am.
At first, Akilo thought the
envelopes were empty, but when he opened them, he discovered that one of them
contained $3,000 while the second envelope had $338 in it.
According to SR, the second envelope contained details of the
owner of the money like the photocopy of his air ticket, names and other
relevant information of the traveler.
who checked the details on the flight system of the airline and discovered that
the owner of the was one of the passengers onboard for departure while the
aircraft was already taxiing for take-off.
A source close to the terminal
told our correspondent that Gloria immediately contacted the pilot who had to
abort the flight and returned the aircraft to the apron.
The pilot was
said to have called out the name of the passenger through the cockpit address
system.
Upon inquiry from the passenger, Abenemi insisted he didn’t lose
any money, but when he was asked about two envelopes with some dollars, he
immediately checked his hand luggage, but could not find the money there. It was
then it dawned on him that he had misplaced the two
envelopes.
Saharareporters further gathered that when he confirmed the
loss of the envelopes, he was probed on the exact amount of money in each of
them, which he answered correctly. Then, the envelopes containing the money were
handed to him.
The source said: “The routine is that whenever boarding is
closed, the security officials are expected to close the counters and return
them to offices of airlines, but yesterday while Joseph was doing this, he came
across two envelopes on the ground and when he opened it, he discovered they
contained United States dollars with few details of the passenger. One of the
envelopes contained $3,000 while the other was $338.
“Without telling
anyone as some of the workers there might want to convince him not to report it,
he secretly took the envelopes to the Station Manager of Virgin Atlantic
(Gloria) who also checked the details of the passenger and discovered he was
on-board the flight with his seat number.
“But, at first, the passenger
insisted he didn’t lose any money. However, when he was asked if he had any
money in envelopes, it was then he checked his hand luggage, but could not find
the sum. After he was asked series of questions in the presence of security
officials, they discovered that the money belonged to him and the envelopes were
handed over back to him.”
Akilo is one of the junior staff of ALML where
he earns N25,000 monthly as a salary.
