Construction workers breaking into walls and digging a sewer system at an old Belgian brewery stumbled across an eye-popping stash of gold worth more than $10 million.
The shocking discovery, made while digging in Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde near Brussels, included 49 gold bars, a bucket of gold coins, and at least one gold nugget.
“Our first reaction was disbelief, amazement. We certainly hadn’t expected to find gold,” Kobe, an 18-year-old student working at the site for a summer job, told Belgian outlet VRT. Kobe said he initially thought the workers had uncovered single-Euro coins before he spotted a gold nugget, and the crew began to realize the scale of the discovery.
The site manager told VRT: “After 33 years in the construction industry, this is the first time I’ve experienced anything like this.”
The glinting hoard, including the coins, nuggets, and numbered bullion bars, was carefully stashed in a bag in a bricked-in cellar wall beneath a massive villa originally built for the brewery’s owner, Theophilus Van Assche, in the late 19th century.
Kobe said the treasure appeared to have been deliberately hidden. “It was really bricked in there—not in a safe or anything,” he explained.
Brewing on the site began in 1899 and ended in 1970. The wrought-iron gates of the site still boldly declare the owner’s initials: “VA.” The area is currently being completely overhauled by the local social welfare organization to create new housing and offices.
“The Brouwershuis [brewer’s howse] was a beautiful building, but it is being completely gutted,” an official told the news outlet HLN. “Ultimately, only the walls will remain. Laborers were laying drainage pipes when they stumbled across the gold.”
The workers quickly notified police and local officials after realizing what they had found. Authorities inventoried $10.4 million in gold before moving it to a high-security federal government vault.
Its origins remain a mystery. “At this moment, it is not known where that gold comes from, nor to whom it legally belongs,” local legal official Hanne Ollevier told De Standaard.
The East Flanders Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the discovery. Ollevier said authorities must first verify that the bullion was not stolen property or the proceeds of criminal activity.
As for Kobe, he noted hopefully: “Maybe we’ll get some kind of finder’s reward eventually.”
