The airport’s security center said on Tuesday that the employee, a 56-year-old custodian, had violated "procedures to deal with belongings whose owners could not be confirmed."
At around 11:45 a.m. on July 1, a South Korean passenger who landed at Da Nang Airport requested help from security personnel to look for his iPhone 11, which they had lost track of in the airport.
The passenger then geo-located his phone and found it underneath a tree in the international terminal parking lot, about 100 meters away from where it was originally lost.
Security camera footage revealed that the custodian found the phone half an hour prior near a flower pot inside the airport. The custodian then placed it under a tree in the parking lot and covered it with grass.
Authorities said the cleaner intended to take the phone home after his shift ended.