Disappointed

Greetings, as a valued Cell C customer for the past 3-4 years, i lost my cell phone on the 25th of June in a taxi, some gentlemen picked it up and took the responsibility of keeping it safe for me until the 30th of June (please note that I constantly called him to find out where he is to get the phone back), when i called him (my number again) yesterday 30 June he said that he wants to be compensated R500 for keeping it for me, i thought that its useless to pay that much for a phone worth less than R150, so i blocked the number. Now when i contacted Cellc they just told me that the number doesn't have any usage when i want to make a sim-swap. How?? Please I would really like to have my number back *** - Non-Rica'd Serial ***. current work number ***-Isaac