Is it permissible for me to consider the money I lost, which I cannot recover from a travel agency, as a substitute for the unlawful money I previously acquired, or must I demand it back and donate its equivalent value?

Money earned from working in a wine-serving establishment is ill-gotten and forbidden, and it must be disposed of by giving it to the poor and needy. It is not permissible to leave this money to the office that took it unlawfully and consider it a disposal of the forbidden money. Nor is it permissible to benefit from it unless the person is poor and in need, in which case it is permissible for him to take from it what suffices his need, and to give it as charity to himself and his dependents if they are poor. The questioner has the right to demand from the office what it took from his money unlawfully.