One would expect lost items that have been found and handed over to the police to include smartphones, tablets, laptops, cameras, wallets, jewellery, watches, sunglasses, backpacks and cash.

But the current list is also made up of much more unusual items: a quadcopter, a driller, angle grinders, a metal scalpel and a remote control used to operate a tower crane. These items, which also included an expensive Canon 500D digital SLR camera, were among a long list taken to the police – by citizens with a sense of civic duty – between January and June and published in The Government Gazette.

According to law, any person who finds a movable object is bound to restore it to its previous owner. This excludes a treasure trove: money or coins, gold, silver or bullion found hidden underground or in places such as cellars or attics, whose owner is presumed dead and their heirs untraceable.

More often than not the onus rests on the finder to report the discovery

If the finder cannot return it to the owner, then the item must be delivered to the police, who must publish a full list of the lost items in The Government Gazette.

The legal measure is hard to enforce, meaning that more often than not the onus rests on the finder to report the discovery.

If these objects are not claimed even after a second notice is published following a three-month period after the first, they automatically become the property of their finders.

The law states that if the owner turns up to claim the lost item, he must pay the finder a reward, the value of which must not exceed one-tenth of the object’s. If within six months of the first notice, neither the finder nor the owner claims the article, it will become the property of the State.