An accident with a paper shredder nearly cost one Taiwanese man over six thousand U.S. dollars. But thanks to one forensic expert at Taiwan's Justice Ministry, a painful mistake didn't end up costing that much to fix.<br /><br />A Taiwan forensic scientist nicknamed the "jigsaw expert" has helped a man recover cash he accidentally shredded. The expert pieced together the remains of 200 bank notes in just seven days.<br /><br />A man by the surname Lin accidently dropped a moneybag into the shredding machine at his workplace last month. The bag contained 200,000 Taiwanese dollars in 1,000 Taiwanese dollar notes. It's worth about $6,600 U.S. dollars.<br /><br />[Liu Hui-fen, Forensic Scientist]:<br />"I chose to pick out the Chinese characters to prove that there were really 200 of the characters. With any piece, I know immediately where it belongs, and I just look for spaces to place it in."<br /><br />According to a ministry official, the special investigations unit receives about 250 cases of damaged notes each year. They attempt to repair as many as possible free of charge.<br /><br />Under Taiwanese law, people can claim replacement bills from the central bank as long as at least 75 percent of the original is pieced together.
