A brewery’s cellar wall held quite a secret. It wasn’t a stash of booze, but it was something much more valuable.
Chief Patrick Feys said, “I thought it was a joke because things like that normally don’t happen in real life.”
What doesn’t normally happen is finding 49 gold bars and more than 4,000 gold coins, worth about $10 million, The New York Times reported.
It’s not sure where it came from or who will get to keep it.
A crew was working on the foundation of a brewery built in the 1890s in Dendermonde, Belgium, when they found it. The site is being renovated into transitional housing for homeless people. One of the bars had a datestamp from the 1960s, the Times reported.
At first, they thought they found one-euro coins, but they were vastly mistaken.
“We stumbled across it while carrying out groundwork to lay a pipe for the sewerage system,” one worker identified as Kobe said, according to CBS News. “We certainly hadn’t expected to find gold.”
Feys said a team of four people counted the treasure at the police station, while a surveillance camera recorded them to make sure nothing was lost or stolen.
“An amount like this, it’s always a risk,” Feys said, adding that he did not relax until the gold was transferred to federal custody.
Officials also said the former brewery was “turned upside down,” and no gold was left behind, the BBC reported.
Police will investigate where the gold initially came from — whether it was stolen or involved in a crime, the Times reported.
If the gold was earned by legitimate means, then the family or heirs of the property have five years to claim it.
Théophile van Assche originally owned it, and his three children ran it until it closed in 1970. They never married or left heirs.
The building was left to a Benedictine monastery, but it gave the property to CAW Oost-Vlaanderen, a social services non-profit run by Geert Hillaert.
The gold may go to the organization, and if it does, Hillaert said it would be used to build more housing for people who are without homes.
Belgian law says it would be divided between the finder and the property owner if it was not stolen or from a crime, the BBC reported.
Three people told police they have a connection to the gold. If it is proven that someone has a legitimate claim, Hillaert said his organization would likely not contest it.
“We are not that sort of an organization,” he said, according to the Times.
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