Bank Staff Reconstruct 15,000 Torn Banknotes for Elderly Man

In Wuhan, China, bank employees spent over 20 days meticulously reconstructing approximately 15,000 torn banknotes, amounting to 266,000 yuan (over 1 billion VND), that were destroyed by an 80-year-old man with cognitive decline. The arduous effort successfully recovered the man's lifelong savings. In early June, while cleaning the house of his 80-year-old uncle, Mr. Wang, in Xinzhou District, Wuhan, Mr. Xu discovered an old jar filled with shredded banknotes. It was revealed that Mr. Wang, suffering from age-related cognitive decline, had torn up his savings without the family's knowledge. His lifelong accumulation had turned into over 15,000 pieces. On June 5, Mr. Xu brought the shredded money to the Xinzhou branch of Wuhan Rural Commercial Bank for assistance. The bank formed a special team of 13 employees to handle this challenging case. The team members spread thousands of banknote fragments on large tables, categorizing them by color, size, and pattern. Notably, many pieces were smaller than a fingernail. Using tweezers, employees picked up each fragment, examining it under a magnifying glass to match cut lines, anti-counterfeiting features, and serial numbers to accurately identify each bill. Their goal was to reconstruct complete banknotes. According to bank regulations, damaged currency can only be exchanged if it meets sufficient area and minimum identification characteristics. Loi Vien, an employee on the processing team, stated that the work demanded extreme meticulousness. In the early days, the team could only piece together about nine bills per day. A bank manager likened the task to "searching for a needle at the bottom of the sea," as many 100-yuan notes were torn into five to six pieces, some with fragments too small to be identified by the naked eye. After more than 20 days of work, through three exchange periods from June 22 to June 30, the bank successfully exchanged 266,000 yuan, exceeding the initial estimate of 200,000 yuan. The story later spread on Chinese social media, with many questioning why the bank did not weigh the shredded money or use artificial intelligence to determine its value instead of manual reconstruction. A bank representative explained that the exchange of damaged currency must adhere to regulations. Employees are required to accurately identify fragments belonging to the same banknote through patterns, serial numbers, and anti-counterfeiting features before assessing the intactness ratio to decide whether to exchange the full or partial denomination. Upon receiving the recovered money, Mr. Xu presented a commemorative flag and several watermelons to the bank. "We never expected to get this money back. Thank you to the management and staff for working overtime to help our family," he said. Source: VnExpress