Nov 28, 2008 6:36 am US/Pacific
Spain: Cleaner Who Turned In $20,000 Can Keep It
MADRID, Spain (AP) ―
A Peruvian immigrant who found $20,000 (16,000 euros) while cleaning an airliner and turned it in to the police can now call the booty her own.
Marisol Aguirre, 47, said the airline Iberia contacted her last week to say no one had claimed the cash and that under Spanish law it belongs to her.
"Just imagine! I could hardly believe it," Aguirre told The Associated Press Thursday.
Aguirre found the money in 2005 while working for a company that cleans planes at Madrid's Barajas airport.
She had almost forgotten about the find — $20,000 in cash in a plastic bag in the first-class section of the plane she had been cleaning.
Under Spanish law, someone who finds an abandoned object, no matter what the value, gets to keep it if the owner does not come forward within two years and one day.
Aguirre said Iberia "has been very honest and treated me very well. It is like a miracle."
At the time she found the money, Aguirre's father in Peru had just died and she had to take out a loan to fly home and bury him.
Now, she will use her windfall to settle that debt, cover other expenses and send money home to her mother.
"The soul of my father and God have illuminated me," she said.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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