Thierry Bellisha, 32, and two colleagues unloaded all of their suitcases from Hossam Abdalla's taxi at LaGuardia Airport. All except one.

The co-owner of Montreal-based Crown Ring immediately looked up but it was too late - Abdalla had already sped off, unaware he still had a suitcase worth several hundred thousand dollars in the trunk of his yellow cab, according to the Canadian Press.

"I screamed and I prayed to God like crazy," Bellisha, an Orthodox Jew. Later in the day Abdalla happened to look in his trunk and saw what he called "a weird bag."

"When I opened it, I found the jewelry inside," Abdalla comments in an interview, with CP, from New York City on Friday. "It was mostly wedding bands, lots and lots of them."

Abdalla looked in the back of his cab for one of Bellisha's business cards and called the relieved jeweler and returned the jewelry. Bellisha promised the cab driver a reward and future business. Abdalla will be getting the Montrealer's business whenever he's in the Big Apple from now on.

"He became my personal cab driver now in New York," Bellisha said to CP. "I know I'm in good hands when I drive with him."