KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 ― A senior citizen in Taiwan who hid NT$2 million (RM295,467) in an air purifier and forgot about it, was lucky to get  the money back thanks to an honest recyclable company worker who found it. 

The worker, identified by his surname Lin, was testing out the air purifier when the machine emitted strange sounds, prompting him to disassemble it and find the cash in two paper bags, Taiwan News reported.

Lin then went to a police station in the Sanxia Precinct in New Taipei City accompanied by his employer to handover the money.

The station's chief Chuang Yu-pei said they managed to locate the money's owner in two hours after going through CCTV footage that showed a blue truck unloading the air purifier.

Police later notified the owner of the cash, identified as a 70-year-old man surnamed Chen.

Chen reportedly said he had sent the air purifier away to be recycled as his home was undergoing renovations.

The machine was said to be over four decades old and had not been in use for a long time.

Chen could not recall when he hid the money in the machine.

He thanked Lin and the police for returning the money to him.

Meanwhile, police said Chen was confirmed to be the owner of the money as they have compared his handwriting to the handwritten numbers on the paper bags that contained the money.

Chuang said this was the first time she had encountered someone finding so much lost money.