Lost items, now found, thanks to an intrepid inspector
Found and Unclaimed Property Office (Fupo) supervisor Rossidah Bakri sifts through items that arrive at her office and tries to match them to their owner. PHOTO: Damien Teo
SINGAPORE — Each day, they arrive in a steady trickle — mainly keys, mobile phones and wallets — to an unassuming office on Hemmant Road, near Geylang.
Every now and then, a “find” raises eyebrows: A Formula One race tyre warmer, S$16,000 in cash.
And it is Found and Unclaimed Property Office (Fupo) supervisor Rossidah Bakri’s job to sift through the items and try to match them to their owner.
Last year, an average of 86 reports of items found made its way through Fupo each day, lodged by well-meaning members of the public.
Over the past five years, Fupo has been receiving an increasing number of reports of property found, rising from around 25,600 reports in 2011 to around 31,300 last year.
Located at the Police Logistics Base, it has a storage room roughly the size of two rooms in a housing board flat.
Senior Station Inspector (SSI) Rossidah ploughs through about 40 items each day. About 60 per cent of the reports of items found handled by the department daily are resolved, she told TODAY in an interview.
Her modus operandi varies from piecing together clues to the owner’s identity from cards, passports or documents, to trawling through a database of lost reports, which vastly outnumber the reports of items found: Last year, the figure, which fluctuates, stood at about 109,500.
A police spokesperson explained that items with “identifiable features” such as wallets, mobile phones and personal documents are easier to trace to their owners, with the majority of such property being returned.
“The difficulty in tracing items can be attributed to items where there is a lack of unique or distinguishable identification, or when lost property reports are not lodged. Without such information, it is not possible for Fupo to trace the owners,” the spokesperson added.
Asked about the quirkiest items she came across, SSI Rossidah threw out the following: A car radiator and an F1 tyre warmer. Did she find their owners? No, she replied.
But those items are far and few between for the 17-strong team.
SSI Rossidah recounted an episode last month, where a member of the public found an envelope containing S$16,000 in cash.
It belonged to a middle-aged foreigner, who had lodged a police report. After verifying the contents of the envelope with him, the money — in S$100 denominations — was returned to him. He was overjoyed, she recounted.
In another incident, she came across a wallet containing about S$1,000 and managed to find the owner who had made a report. “I felt a sense of accomplishment. Maybe it was his salary, or he needed the money for his family,” said SSI Rossidah.
Items that cannot be returned to their owner after 30 days of being given to the police are disposed of.
Valuables such as watches are auctioned off at a hotel two to three times a year, while cash is forfeited to the state weekly. Items such as mobile phones — which contain personal data — and keys are taken to an incinerator once or twice a month.
On reuniting items with their owners, SSI Rossidah said: “Sometimes we get offered rewards. Owners are very happy and want to reward us (with fruit baskets or drinks). We say cannot. A letter of appreciation to our department is enough.”
