Strangers Find, Help Cleaner Seen Gazing at Gold

Nazer al-Islam Abdul Karim was looking through a shop window at a jewelry display in Saudi Arabia when he saw "a flash." Days later, he's swimming in gifts. An unknown individual had snapped a photo of Abdul Karim, a cleaner in Riyadh, and posted it to Instagram with a caption that translates to "this man deserves to only look at rubbish," per the Telegraph. When Abdullah Al-Qahtani saw the photo, he was outraged and immediately sought help on Twitter to find the window shopper. "I received tons of phone calls and messages in response," Al-Qahtani tells CNN. Three hours later, Abdul Karim, 65, had been found after Twitter users used reflections in the window pane in the photo to pin down his location.

"I was just doing my job as a cleaner in the municipality and found myself in front of the gold shop." Then "I heard that my photo was in the media," says Abdul Karim, who's now received donations from complete strangers. The Telegraph lists just some of the items he's received, including money, rice, honey, an iPhone 7, a Samsung Galaxy, and the opportunity to travel to his home country of Bangladesh. Al Qahtani, 38—who uses Twitter to connect those in need in Riyadh with social media users—has also posted photos of Abdul Karim with a gold chain and earrings from the very store he was admiring in the Instagram photo. "I am very happy about the gifts and very thankful," the cleaner says. (Strangers also helped the father of a boy with autism.)