SOUTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — An Army veteran says the military taught him about integrity and that played a role in him turning in more than $8,000 in cash delivered to his mailbox.
Police said someone scammed a 90-year-old grandmother, telling her her grandson was in trouble and needed cash.
The scammers asked her to send the money to a mailbox at a rental home in South Fulton County, but the owner of the property, Darrius Thomas, got there first.
“The right thing to do was return the money,” Thomas said.
It was back in December when Thomas checked the mailbox at the vacant rental home on Williams Avenue.
He found a package addressed to someone he never rented to. He found a calendar inside.
“Each page of the calendar had $100 bills lined in it,” Thomas said. There was a total of $8,000.
The Army veteran found out a woman in Wisconsin had sent the package. Police in Wisconsin told him to contact local police.
East Point police found out someone kept calling woman.
“She was advised that her grandson was in trouble,” said Capt. Allyn Glover, with the East Point Police Department.
The caller urged her to send cash to Thomas’ address, a College Park address and homes in other cities.
The woman sent more than $54,000.
“Oh it was a 100 percent scam,” Glover said.
Police are working to return the woman’s money.
Thomas said doing right is never wrong.
“I am an Army veteran, so I did learn that integrity is important,” Thomas said.
Channel 2′s Tom Jones reached out to the family in Wisconsin. They aren’t trusting anymore calls from people they don’t know and hung up.
Police are working to reward Thomas for turning in the money.
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