Honest Norwegian returns small fortune

updated 6:24 p.m. ET May 15, 2008

OSLO, Norway - Geir Johansen has 8,000 reasons to be glad that everyone seems to know everyone in Leknes, a village of about 2,700 people on Norway's Lofoten islands in the Arctic.

In December, Johansen put a leather folder with about $8,000 on the roof of his car, forgot it and drove off. When he got home, it was gone.

The money was from tickets sold for a local concert with the Oslo Gospel Choir, and proceeds from his small music store, news reports said. Johansen searched and searched, but told the state radio network NRK on Thursday that he finally had to replace the lost money out of his own pocket.

"It was tough to lose it and then have to replace it," he said in the radio interview.

But five months later, on Wednesday, a local sports club, including Johansen's friend Arne Kristian Iversen, was doing some volunteer roadside cleanup.

"I saw something in the ditch," Iversen told the local newspaper Lofot Tidende. "I said it must be Geir's folder." The newspaper said the folder was full of soaking wet money.

Delighted Johansen immediately offered a 10 percent finders fee, but Iversen refused. Instead, the $800 reward will go to the sports club.

"He's at least going to get flowers," the record store owner said on NRK. "And a music CD."

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