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 money, still bundled in those $5,000 wads, had been 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 veteran driver Gerardo Gamboa was unfazed when a Bellagio resort doorman, opening the cab’s rear door to assist a new customer in, noticed a brown paper bag left on the chair by the cab’s previous occupant, apparently. He didn’t also bother to check inside as soon as the doorman put it on his passenger chair until he got to a curiosity and light got the very best of him. Guessing that chocolates lay in delay, a peek was taken by him in, with illicit ideas in mind should his conjecture be correct.

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

Sweet, Not Candy

But there were no chocolates inside when Gamboa exposed that little brown bag; instead, there was cash. And by cash, we mean…cash. To be exact: $300,000 worth in $100 bills, all well bundled. Which probably weighs a little more than chocolates, Mr. Gamboa; and maybe after 13 years in city, a brown paper bag 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, call us cynical, but we might have assumed this kind of large sum of cash within an innocuous brown paper bag had been destined for payoff of some dubious merchandise. But Mr. Gamboa is evidently more trusting than we are, and after turning the bucks up to Yellow Checker Star, cops had been called in and somehow, the master was discovered, via some good ol’ fashioned gumshoe techniques.

Retracking His Route

This indicates Gamboa recalled dropping off a passenger he had acquired at Cosmopolitan, with all the destination that is final a Palms Place tower; he additionally remembered that this passenger had left him a $5 tip for the ride. Just after, he headed towards the Bellagio cab line, where in fact the resort’s doorman had noticed the cash that is backseat case merely a few minutes before noon.

Adding drama to your situation, somebody mysteriously arrived at the Yellow Star offices to claim the bag, but had no ID, nor was he the individual to who Cosmopolitan had apparently tracked a outbound payment associated with the precise $300,000. Naturally, this was when Metro was called in to assist and sort it all out.

In the end, it absolutely was determined that what could have appeared to be drug money was actually the house of a poker that is famous whom Metro refused to publicly determine. Yes, we’re dying of interest too.

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

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

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

Develop the unnamed poker celeb will forget about only a little bankroll and show some admiration to at least one of Las Vegas’ honest 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.