I'm not a screening clerk nor do I play one on TV...
Back in 1980, I was at JFK waiting to catch a red-eye back to the west coast, in my younger days where red-eyes were survivable. I was off in an unoccupied gate area just to get away from the crowds. I sat down in an empty row of seats. I looked down and saw an eyeglass case in the chair next to me. I picked up the eyeglass case thinking there was a pair of glasses inside. I was hoping they person also left lost & found info.
When I opened up the case, I found 5 brand new and neatly folded $100 bills. (I found a couple of inflation websites and, as far as I can tell, $500 in 1980 is worth about $1500 today.) My very first thought, as someone upstream suggested, that this was bait for a sting. I also thought it might have been a "dead drop" for some sort of espionage operation.
I took the case with the money back to the security checkpoint. (I would NEVER do that today!) The contractor screeners directed me to the nearby Port Authority cop. He had me fill out a lost & found form and told me that the money would be mine if nobody claimed it within a year.
Sure enough, in the spring of 1981, I received a $500 check from the Port Authority police. Mrs Flies & I were married later that year, and the $500 put a huge dent in our honeymoon bill.
This clerk did the right thing, and I'm sure he doesn't want the publicity. You know that Blogdad Bob is going to play this up like crazy. Somebody in TSA Public Affairs would have had to tip off the Newark media for them to run a story like this in the first place. Heck, how come I never had an article written about me: "Air Force First Lieutenant Finds $500 at JFK and Turns It In To Lost & Found."