Family Finds Bags With Nearly $1 Million in Cash on the Road, Calls Police Upon Discovery

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How would you react if you happened to find stacks of cash totaling up to US$1 million lying on the road? Would you keep it for yourself or instead choose to return it to the rightful owner? For a family in Virginia, there was no question on what was the right thing to do.

Emily Schantz, of Caroline County, was out for a drive on the family’s pickup truck with her husband, David, and their two sons on May 16, 2020, a day after most of the state started to reopen following two months of being shut down due to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus. Suddenly, a car in front of them swerved to avoid hitting something on the road.

Illustration - Doidam 10/Shutterstock

The Schantz family then hit something that they thought was a bag of trash. When their pickup truck ran over it, they heard a “huge clunk noise,” Schantz told WTVR. Another similar bag was spotted 15 feet away.

Without giving much thought to it, they picked up the two bags and threw them into the back of their pickup truck before continuing their ride. However, unbeknownst to the family, they were driving with something valuable around the county for several hours, which was nearly $1 million in cash.

It was only when the family returned home and took a look at the contents inside that they realized what had transpired.

“Inside of the bag, there were plastic baggies and they were addressed with something that said ‘cash vault,’” Schantz said. On discovering this huge amount of cash, the Schantz family called the sheriff’s office.

Deputies from the Caroline County Sheriff’s Office came to the family’s home after they were informed. They then took inventory and totaled up the money, which added up to $1 million.

Alluding to the incident, Maj. Scott Moser of the sheriff’s office said: “They came back to Caroline, and found out they'd been riding around with almost a million dollars in the truck.”

Moser also praised the Schantzes for turning in their findings.

“For someone so honest and willing to give that almost a million dollars back, it’s exceptional on their part,” he said. “Their two sons were there, so I put the lights on for them, but we are proud and they represented this county well by being so honest.”

However, for Schantz, she knew they had to “do the right thing and return it because it didn’t belong to us.”

After some investigation, authorities have now determined where the money was heading but are unaware of how the cash ended up in the middle of a road in Goochland County, the Associated Press reported.

Though Moser did not reveal the recipient of the money, he hopes that the family will be rewarded for their honesty.

“Their actions deserve nothing less,” Moser said. “They saved someone a lot of money and set a wonderful example for everyone else.”

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