Nguyen Thi Thuat, who makes her living buying and selling scraps in Hanoi, always returns found money to owners, which once amounted to US$19,100.

Thuat’s household used to be one of the poorest in Quoc Oai town. When she and her husband began dealing scrap metal five years ago, their income improved slightly, but they still struggled to make ends meet and support their two kids.

Everyone in Thuat’s neighborhood was astounded to learn that eight months ago, she returned 10 taels of gold to the owner, worth more than VND400 million (US$19,100), a huge sum which she and her husband wouldn’t be able to make in 10 years.

She recalled that she found the gold in a pile of used cardboard boxes. Though she couldn’t remember who she bought the boxes from, she and her husband decided to have someone search for its rightful owner.

When she found and verified the owner, she returned the gold and refused to receive a sum as a thank-you.

Locals said that this isn’t the only time Thuat has returned money or lost assets to the rightful owner. During five years of scrap dealing, whenever she finds money in scraps, however small the sum, she traces it to the owner and returns the money. She had returned a total of some VND5 million ($241) before returning the most recent sum of $19,100.

In her shabby house filled to the brim with scraps hang several merit papers issued by the local government in recognition of Thuat’s good deeds.

“I think it’s no big deal to return gold or money to the owners; everyone would do the same,” 42-year-old Thuat smiled.

Several Tuoi Tre readers contrasted Thuat’s deeds with the beer looting in Bien Hoa earlier this month, in which some hundred people ignored the desperate cries of the helpless driver and stole boxes of beer after a truck carrying some 1,500 boxes of beer overturned in the street.