Honest Cabbie

Taxi driver returns diamonds he found in his cab
18/11/2005 - 13:15:23

Haider Sediqi didn’t give much thought to the small, zippered pouch left in his taxi by a passenger he took to Los Angeles International Airport.

The Afghan immigrant stashed the brown bag in the front, leaving it unopened as he finished his shift on Wednesday and met a fellow driver for lunch.

As he walked to a toilet, Sediqi asked his friend to check the bag for identification.

“Oh, God,” Sediqi, 40, recalled his friend saying as he stared into the bag. “Look at those things.”

Inside, packed in clear plastic cases were diamonds – about 100 of them, cut and polished and worth €300,000. Also inside was a mobile phone bill.

Sediqi, a father of two with a pregnant wife, called the number, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Um, did you leave anything?” he asked the man who answered.

“Oh, my God,” said jewellery businessman Eric Austein.

Sediqi arranged to meet Austein, whose flight to New York had not yet departed, at the airport police station.

Police inventoried the diamonds and confirmed Austein’s identity. Austein took possession of the gems, hugged Sediqi and promised him a reward.

Sediqi said he never considered keeping the diamonds, even though he dreams of opening a restaurant.

“God is up there,” he said yesterday as he waited outside a garage, where his cab was having its brakes fixed. “He always watches.”