Construction workers knock down wall, find massive haul of gold bars. Cops confiscate it all, building owner says ‘once in a lifetime experience’

A team of construction workers got a surprise when they demolished a cellar wall and discovered a literal treasure chest full of gold.

As reported by Pollar News the incident took place in Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde in Belgium on Aug 10. Workers for the construction firm De Brand were carrying out renovation work on a building that was formerly a brewery, but now belongs to welfare charity CAW Oost-Vlaanderen, when they knocked down a wall. Entombed in the masonry was a chest, and upon opening it they were confronted by a treasure hunter’s dream.

Initial reports estimate there was $10 million in gold inside, in the form of more than 40 gold bars and 4000 coins. The construction workers immediately summoned the building’s owner Geert Hillaert, who said: “Surprise and astonishment were my first reaction. This is a once in a lifetime experience.”

The case of Finders vs Keepers

Belgian law states that simply finding treasure doesn’t mean it’s yours, and the morning after the discovery, the cops arrived to seize the gold and transport it to a secure storage location for investigation. This is typical around the world, as a man who discovered gold bars while digging a hole for a swimming pool discovered last year.

Cops are reportedly first trying to figure out how the gold ended up in the wall, whether it was placed there illegally, and if its rightful owner can be found.

Hillaert is clearly hoping that the investigation won’t turn up anything and that the money can go to his organization, as he already has plans to use it to build shelters for homeless people in the region: “We will create additional capacity for our target group across all of East Flanders. That would be a very welcome gift to address the enormous need we experience daily.”

A discussion on Reddit about the haul has given some clues. Initial suspicions were that this could have been gold hidden either by or from the Nazis during World War II, with the owner having died before they could recover it. However, others noted that several of the bars are dated between 1957 and 1968, indicating that they were placed there sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

Another poster notes that the markings on the bars denote them as Rothschild & Sons bars, “which are insanely rare, just a 100 gram bar sells for 21,000 euros and these are 1 KILO bars. those are $140k a pop.” In an interesting twist, the “NJ” stamped onto the bars apparently indicates they were minted in New Jersey, raising the question of how they made their way across the Atlantic and into a cellar wall.

In other treasure-hunting news, a man described as a “real-life Nathan Drake” served a decade behind bars after refusing to reveal the whereabouts of a stash of gold coins he found off the coast of South Carolina.