More than 50 'cash-hungry contestants' try to claim lost money, North Vancouver RCMP say

In an effort to find the person who had lost what police would only refer to as a "pretty big wad of cash," investigators had to sift through dozens of fraudulent calls before finding the rightful owner, say North Vancouver RCMP.

Last Wednesday, police askedthe owner of anundisclosed amount of cashturned in over the previous weekend to come forward, according to a Sept. 9 police statement.

Instead, RCMP investigators found themselves wading through calls from more than 50 people, prompting policeto coin themoniker "cash-hungry contestants."

"This weekend was like a marathon episode of The Price Is Right,"saidNorth Vancouver RCMP Sgt. PeterDeVries.

'Despicable' claims

"I thought we had made it clear we didn't want people to play the guessing game. Maybe they didn't read to the end of the news release," he said.

The original news release from Sept. 9 had specifically asked that people refrain from guessing the bill denominations.

"Last time we did this with valuables that were turned in to us, quite a few people contacted us claiming the valuables mighthave been theirs when they actually weren't," said DeVries.

"[It's] despicable to see people trying to falsely claim ownership."

The rightful owner did eventually get in touch to claim the $2,600, said Devries. He saidthe owner wasable to describe the location where they thought they had lost it, which he said was consistent with where it had been found.

RCMP caution that falsely claiming items as your own is not only unkindbutcould be considered fraud under Canada's Criminal Code.