The mystery of the lost wallet
FERNDALE – "We were happy to see his relief, and felt more than repaid knowing that we'd been able to help somebody who had almost suffered a devastating financial loss."
On 9 October, a message pinged through a Whatsapp street group in Bryanfern saying ‘Good morning all, has anyone lost a brown wallet?’
Nobody claimed it, and the wallet was left with John Endres of the Bryanfern Residents Association to see if he could find the owner.
“When I got home from work in the evening, I took a closer look,” said Endres. “The wallet was brown and heavily worn. It was grubby on the outside and smelled distinctively of spicy herbs. I opened it to see if there were any clues to the owner’s identity. But it contained no ID card, no driver’s licence, no bank card, and no easy-to-use ‘please return to owner – reward’ card with a phone number.”
Clearly this was not going to be straightforward.
Endres systematically searched through all the compartments of the wallet and laid out the contents on a table. He found R790 in cash, two SIM cards, a micro SD memory card and – hidden in the zipped compartment at the back – two small pieces of paper, folded and refolded until they were barely larger than a fingernail.
Everything indicated that this was not a rich person’s wallet. The money must have represented the fruit of many days of heavy toil and sacrifice. In Endres’ mind, it became very important to try to find the owner and return their money to them. He was determined to explore every avenue.
The scraps of paper had clearly been folded and unfolded often. The paper was worn threadbare and threatened to tear at the folds. He unfolded the pieces with great care. One of them showed a few sparse lines, two names written alongside two eight-digit numbers beginning with 5, repeated on the back. On the front, there was also a cell number prefixed with +27 – the dialling code for South Africa.
Was this his lucky break? “I called the number. A man answered. I introduced myself and explained that I was looking for the owner of a lost wallet. But he couldn’t help. He didn’t know anybody who had lost their wallet. He was a bricklayer living in Pretoria and asked me for a job.” Sadly, this lead was a dead end.
Maybe the eight-digit numbers were phone numbers? “I looked up the country codes and area codes of telephone numbers in our neighbouring countries. No luck. I tried googling the numbers along with the names. Nothing.”
So he turned his attention to the SIM cards. Long, 20-digit numbers were written in tiny numerals on the back of the cards. Maybe this would help him identify the owner? Perhaps the cards had been Rica-verified and were registered to the person who had lost their wallet?
It turns out the numbers are called ICC-IDs. They contain a host of information but won’t tell you which phone number they are linked to. Endres then enlisted the help of Sean Mantel of Special Ops 99, a Bryanfern-based security company, to see if he could help trace more information.
“In the meantime, I entered the numbers into a website that helps decode the meaning. To my surprise, one of the SIM cards was Australian, the other from Lesotho.
“I returned to Google and found out that the eight-digit numbers written on the pieces of paper could be Lesotho mobile numbers. I passed them on to Sean and asked if he had a Sesotho-speaking team member who could call the numbers to find out more. Instead, Sean simply Whatsapped the first number using English, and got an immediate response.”
Mantel wrote, “Do you have any relatives or family working in South Africa? Specifically in the Randburg area? I have found a wallet with SIM cards in it, one number on the SIM was yours,” to which a person named Bonolo responded.
“Yes, I have but I’m not sure where they are,” said Bonolo.
Mantel replied, “Can you try to phone them or SMS them and ask if they have lost their wallet in Randburg? I would like to return the wallet to the rightful owner.”
Endres said from this Whatsapp conversation they were given a South African mobile number. Mantel called the number but had difficulties making himself understood.
Mantel wrote to Bonolo and said, “Please tell him we have your wallet, come to 448 Vale Avenue tomorrow and find me in the security shack. I will give him his wallet back. He must be able to tell me what was in the wallet, and how much money was in it.”
Endres continued, “The next day, a young man had come, shy and diffident, with only a basic understanding of English. We enlisted the help of one of the petrol station attendants who spoke Sesotho. We found out that the young man’s name was Motlale Pula. He makes his living taking recyclables out of rubbish bins and selling them to recycling companies. The work is hard, dangerous, and poorly paid.”
Endres told him, “We have found a wallet. We want to give it back to the person who lost it. But you have to prove it is your wallet, so we will ask you some questions about it, ok?”
“Ok,” the man replied.
Endres asked questions such as what colour the wallet was? How much money was in the wallet? How many SIM cards were in the wallet? Anything else in the wallet?
He replied correctly and Endres told Pula that this was clearly his wallet.
“With that, we gave Motlale his wallet back,” said Endres. “He didn’t say anything but was clearly moved. We were happy to see his relief, and felt more than repaid knowing that we’d been able to help somebody who had almost suffered a devastating financial loss.”
By helping those around us, we can make a difference. In South Africa, the heat and commotion of national politics is a distraction: it is at local level, in your community, among your friends and the people in your neighbourhood, that you can have the biggest positive impact and find a source of encouragement and meaning,” concluded Endres.
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