A wallet containing almost $3,000 and gold credit cards was lost on a busy Oxford street. Its owner top Brazilian civil servant Roberto Garcio expected never to see it again.

But the finance director for Brazil's ministry of agriculture had not reckoned on the community spirit of two 17-year-old Oxford schoolgirls.

For Joanna Martin and Kirsty Wall, of Wychwood School, found the wallet in Broad Street and took it straight to the nearest police station.

And now Mr Garcio has visited the Banbury Road school to thank the teenagers - and told them to come and visit him any time at his South American home.

He is also sending the girls a present to show his thanks.

Joanna, of Newland Mill, Witney, said: "We were shopping in Oxford and it was there lying in the street.

"We opened it up and it had two gold cards, an ID card and a lot of money.

"It was obviously a substantial amount and when we took it to the police station they found more hidden inside it."

But the girls were astonished to hear that the wallet contained $2,900 - the equivalent of £1,779.

Mr Garcio had only been in Oxford for a day seeing his solicitor but he came back to the city for a special visit with an interpreter to thank the girls.

Joanna said: "He said we were beautiful people and that he has got his own private jet and would take us over to Brazil. We plan to take him up on his offer and go out and see him." Kirsty Wall, of Hatford, Wantage, added: "We did what we should have done."

The headteacher of the independent girls' school, Sue Wingfield, Digby said: "They went straight to the police station as any good citizen should do."

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