Bag containing Dh170,000 lies unclaimed with Dubai Police

80% of missing items are not claimed by their owners.

A bagful of Venezuelan currency amounting to Dh170,000 is lying unclaimed with the Dubai Police. 
As much as 80 per cent of items recovered by the police are not claimed by their owners, said Colonel Rashid Bin Safwan, head of Dubai Police's Lost and Found department. This, despite the fact that most of these items are valuable, according to a report in Al Ittihad newspaper. 
It seems that people are generally unaware that their missing items have been found and many think that things that are lost cannot be found again. The unclaimed items include electronic devices, and documents such as the Emirates ID card, driver's licence and passports, as well as currencies of different countries. The places from which these items were mostly recovered are hotels, shopping centres, and from the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), the report said.
Last year, around 9,000 cases of missing items were filed with the Dubai Police, Bin Safwan was quoted as saying in the report. Around 50 per cent of them were referred to the management and 20 per cent claimed. After three months, the unclaimed items were auctioned, while the unclaimed money and the 1,755 documents were transferred to the authorities concerned.
Bin Safwan added that the owner of a missing item has the right to demand its return till 15 years, barring those that are sold in the public auction. In case it is auctioned, the value of the recovered item is estimated and the owner is given cash equivalent to it.
He stressed that police stations do not receive such recovered items directly. They handle the claim and then process the paperwork by giving it a file number.

• Dubai