A restaurant owner found $12,000 in cash stuffed inside a sunglasses case hidden in an old cabinet — and instead of keeping it, he tracked down the money’s rightful owner to hand back every dollar.
Sak Yiengjuntuek bought Lemongrass Pho & Thai Cuisine in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in April 2025, and initially moved a cabinet left behind by the previous owner outside, behind the building. A fire at a neighboring business then forced his restaurant to close for several months.
When Yiengjuntuek reopened a few weeks ago, he decided to move the old cabinet to his house. Cleaning it out, he opened a sunglasses case tucked inside — and found it stuffed with cash.
“The first thing in my mind was that I’d try to find the right person to get this money back to,” Yiengjuntuek told WMBF News.
“I feel like this is the right thing to do,” he said. “You know, it doesn’t belong to you, you need to return to someone else that it belongs to.”
Tracking the previous owner down wasn’t simple. The phone number Yiengjuntuek had on file had been disconnected. But he remembered he might have saved another number under a different name — he tried it, and the call went through.
The timing mattered more than Yiengjuntuek initially realized: he said the previous owner is currently going through health issues, and getting the money back couldn’t have come at a better time.
