Student discovers suspected €9 million gold hoard at Belgian building site

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Kritik
23 Aug 2026
20
SubCategory | Public Sentiment

Student discovers suspected €9 million gold hoard at Belgian building site

By TheSun

A BELGIAN student working a summer job at a construction site made an extraordinary discovery after uncovering a stash of gold reportedly worth about €9 million (£8 million).

The 18-year-old, identified only as Kobe, was helping excavate trenches for a drainage system at a former brewery in Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde, about 30km north-west of Brussels, when he and his colleagues came across the hidden treasure.

Kobe said he initially believed the objects they found were ordinary coins.

“We suddenly saw something lying there. At first I thought it was €1 coins. So we started digging them up. Then we saw a gold bar. It turned out to be a bit more than we thought,” he told Belgian broadcaster VTM.

The discovery was made on Tuesday at the former brewery site on Van Langenhovestraat.

The stash reportedly contains gold coins, nuggets and numbered bullion bars that had been concealed inside a bag within a bricked-up section of a cellar wall.

The wall is beneath a large villa originally built for brewery owner Theophilus Van Assche towards the end of the 19th century.

“It’s just not something you expect when you’re working on a regular Tuesday morning,” Kobe said, adding that the treasure appeared to have been deliberately concealed.

“It was really bricked in there – not in a safe or anything,” he said.

Brewing operations at the site began in 1899 and ended in 1970. The historic property, which still has wrought-iron gates bearing the initials “VA”, is now undergoing a major renovation.

The work is being carried out by social welfare organisation CAW Oost-Vlaanderen, which plans to convert the building into offices and housing.

CAW representative Geert Hillaert said workers had discovered the hoard while installing drainage pipes.

“The Brouwershuis was a beautiful building, but it is being completely gutted. Ultimately, only the walls will remain,” he told HLN.

Kobe and his colleagues contacted police and informed CAW after discovering the gold. The hoard has since been placed in a secure facility in Brussels while authorities investigate its origins and determine who legally owns it.

Hanne Ollevier from the East Flanders public prosecutor’s office said authorities must establish whether the gold was stolen or could be linked to criminal activity.

The discovery could also lead to a complicated dispute over ownership, with the construction company, CAW and descendants of the Van Assche family potentially having claims to the treasure.

Under Belgian law, potential owners have at least five years to come forward and claim a discovered treasure.

Former Dendermonde mayor Piet Buyse said the Van Assche family had retained its wealth for generations and suggested the gold could potentially have belonged to them.

“The Van Assche’s fortune had certainly stayed in the family. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they had decided to put at least some of it in gold, and then to hide it in a safe place,” he told HLN.

Kobe said he and his colleagues knew immediately that such a valuable discovery had to be handed over to the authorities.

“If it had been a few coins, maybe not,” he said. “But maybe we’ll get some kind of finder’s reward eventually.”

Source: student-discovers-suspected-e9-million-gold-hoard-at-belgian-building-site

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