'It turned out to be a bit more than we thought' - Belgian students stumble upon gold stash worth €9m

BELGIAN STUDENTS HAVE struck gold after unearthing a stash of the precious metal while conducting an excavation near Brussels.

“We suddenly saw something lying there,” 18-year-old Kobe told Belgian TV station VTM. “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.”

The hoard, which comprises gold coins, nuggets and numbered bullion bars, is worth an estimated €9 million.

The students were working on the site of a former brewery on Van Langenhovestraat, about 19 miles (30km) north-west of Brussels, when they came across the stash on Tuesday.

Construction company De Brand was carrying out excavation and demolition work for a sewage system.

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The gold was stashed in a bag in a bricked-in cellar wall beneath the villa originally built for the brewery’s owner.

Kobe told VTM that he suspected that the treasure was deliberately hidden there.

“Apparently there used to be a cellar, which they filled in later. And the gold was really bricked in there, not in a safe or anything, so I think it really was hidden.”

He also said that the discovery came as a “shock”.

“That is something you don’t expect when you’re just working on Tuesday morning. It’s a shock, but you also know that you have to hand it over, such a big find.”

They called the police and notified the building owner, and the police subsequently took the stash. But following the remarkable find, Kobe says he is hoping for a handsome reward.