Here's What Not to Do When You Find a Bag Filled With $150,000 in Cash
You just found a bag filled with $150,000 in cash, mistakenly left behind by an ATM worker. What do you do? The answer, dear readers who work in law enforcement, is obvious—you turn it in. What do you definitely not do? What this guy did.
Earlier this week, 42-year-old Alton Harvey had a real shot at living out my dream: the ATM shoots free money at you, you take it home and roll around in it, Indecent Proposal-style—woah, you’re 10 pounds lighter and your hair is perfect, and your high school crush is calling you to tell you they made a huge mistake, Yes, yes you did, you think, hanging up the phone because Scottish rugby player Thom Evans is trying to buzz into your apartment building again and this time he has a gift for you, geez does this guy ever give up?
But where another, smarter man might buzz Evans in, or inform police of the bounty, or, perhaps (I don’t know, just playing devil’s advocate here) lay low for a little while and see how things shake out, Harvey allegedly threw the bag of cash in his van, drove to a car dealership just “hours later” and purchased a $46,000 SUV.
At some point, cops say, he also apparently decided now was as good a time as ever to steal some tires, to which I guess there’s a certain criminal logic. When you’re hot, you’re hot, right?
Except he wasn’t.
Cops found his van two days later and arrested him. The brand-new car, which he thoughtfully parked right next to the van, was impounded, along with his plausible deniability, and Harvey is now in jail .
And the dream, the glorious dream, is dead.
