How many times have you forgotten a favorite coat or cell phone in a cab, only to lose it forever? Now, imagine the dread if you left a bag with more than $20,000 in cash and a bunch of passports behind?
That’s exactly what happened to 72-year old Italian tourist Felicia Lettieri on Christmas Eve. Luckily for Lettieri, the cabbie was Jamaica resident Mohammed Asadujjaman Mukul.
For 28-year old, Bangladesh-born Mukul, a pre-med student who drives a cab once a week, Dec. 24 was a busy day. His taxi was constantly filled with customers who had just arrived in New York or were heading out to celebrate the holidays elsewhere.
When he picked up a bunch of Italian tourists at the 53rd St. Hilton in Manhattan, he paid no attention to the happy babble in his cab, dropping the passengers off at Penn Station. One of the customers was Lettieri.
She sat in the front. When Lettieri got off at Penn Station, she turned around and asked Mukul how much it cost to get from Penn Station to Long Island by train. Mukul didn’t know. She waved goodbye and left.
Mukul drove away, making his rounds through Manhattan and Queens, driving with more than $20,000 in Euros in the bag Lettieri had forgotten at his feet.
It wasn’t until the end of the day, as Mukul reached for his cell phone charger, that he came across the money. “It was sitting right there,” said Mukul, referring to the passenger-side floorboard.
When he opened it to determine its contents and owner, Mukul was astounded by what he saw. “A digital camera and wads of Euros,” he said. “For a minute, we thought we were in a Hindi movie,” he added, referring to the popular motif of a hero coming across a bag filled with money, which forever alters his life.
The Italian tourist’s bag held $21,000 in Euros, not to mention bank statements and the passports of the rest of the group she was traveling with. More than the cash, Mukul worried about the camera. “I wanted to return it, so she could take pictures on Christmas,” he said.
As Mukul rifled through the bag’s contents, he deduced Lettieri was at an address in Patchogue, Long Island, and with a friend, he began the 50-mile journey to return the valuables.
On arriving at the house, Mukul found the door shut. The residents were away. Pinning a note with his phone number on both the front and side door, Mukul wrote “Don’t worry Felicia. … I’ll keep it safe.”
During the drive back to the city, Mukul’s phone rang. It was Lettieri. Mukul immediately turned around and went back to Suffolk County, only to be greeted with shrieks of happiness.
“Big pleasure, big big pleasure,” smiles Mukul, remembering Lettieri’s reaction at retrieving her bag. “They hugged me, kissed me and threw a party for me.”
“We really love what he did,” Lettieri told Newsday.
Asked whether he was tempted to take the cash, Mukul nodded his head vigorously. After all, it could have ended his cab-driving days. But in the end, he said, “I couldn’t take the money. … It wasn’t mine.”
Today, Mukul is back to school, still driving his cab on weekends.
His dream is to work in the pharmaceutical business, and he says he’d rather have a job than a reward. Bombarded with media attention, he says he wishes the interview requests were from potential employers.
Asked if all the attention makes him feel like a hero, Mukul said no. “I don’t feel like a hero, I don’t feel like a zero,” he said. “I feel like myself, and I need a job.”
This piece originally appeared in Queens Chronicle
