Japan rubbish worker finds $144,000 cash in trash

TOKYO (AFP) - A worker at a waste disposal site in Japan found around S$144,000 cash in a stream of pulverised rubbish, police said on Wednesday.

"There were about a thousand 10,000 yen ($144) bills that came out of a pulveriser unscathed," said a spokesman at the Asaminami police department in Hiroshima prefecture, in the country's west.

He added that there were also 2,300 fragments of bills destroyed by the machine at a municipal facility that processes bulky waste, such as cupboards and mattresses, that cannot be collected by regular garbage pickup.

Police suspect the owner of the cash might have forgotten the money was there when they threw away some furniture.