An accident with a paper shredder nearly cost one Taiwanese man over six thousand U.S. dollars. But thanks to one forensic expert at Taiwan's Justice Ministry, a painful mistake didn't end up costing that much to fix.
A Taiwan forensic scientist nicknamed the "jigsaw expert" has helped a man recover cash he accidentally shredded. The expert pieced together the remains of 200 bank notes in just seven days.
A man by the surname Lin accidently dropped a moneybag into the shredding machine at his workplace last month. The bag contained 200,000 Taiwanese dollars in 1,000 Taiwanese dollar notes. It's worth about $6,600 U.S. dollars.
[Liu Hui-fen, Forensic Scientist]:
"I chose to pick out the Chinese characters to prove that there were really 200 of the characters. With any piece, I know immediately where it belongs, and I just look for spaces to place it in."
According to a ministry official, the special investigations unit receives about 250 cases of damaged notes each year. They attempt to repair as many as possible free of charge.
Under Taiwanese law, people can claim replacement bills from the central bank as long as at least 75 percent of the original is pieced together.
