An 18-year-old Belgian student working a summer construction job has stumbled upon a hoard of gold bars and coins estimated to be worth €9 million (£7.6m), after workers broke into the foundations of a cellar in Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde, a district in the Flemish city of Dendermonde in east Flanders. The stash — comprising at least 40 gold bars and around 4,000 coins — had been sealed inside a chest embedded in a cellar wall, and was uncovered while the team was drilling to lay new sewage pipes.

"Our first reaction was actually disbelief, amazement," said Kobe, the student, speaking to Belgian public broadcaster VRT. "At first I thought they were €1 coins. But then we also saw a gold nugget lying there. That's when we realised it was something bigger." Site manager Mario, who has worked in construction for 33 years and says he has never seen anything like it, confirmed that the crew briefly considered keeping the find before quickly thinking better of it. "There are so many coins and bars — it would be almost impossible," he told VRT. "Besides, that would be theft." Police were alerted and moved the gold to a secure location, warning members of the public — some of whom had already turned up at the site hoping to find more — that the building site was fenced off and contained dangerous excavations.

Historian and former long-serving mayor of Dendermonde, Piet Buyse, believes the hoard almost certainly belonged to the Van Assche family, a wealthy brewing dynasty that purchased the land in 1899 and built a manor house there. The family also owned cafés and property, accumulating a substantial fortune that was never divided among heirs, as all three children of patriarch Theofiel Van Assche died unmarried. After the last surviving family member died in 1982, the property was bequeathed to a local abbey on the condition it be used for charitable purposes. Buyse suggests the gold, which dates to after the Second World War, was likely accumulated as a safe haven for wealth — a common practice among the generation that lived through the 1929 stock market crash. "When it was donated to the monks, the treasure was apparently donated along with it, without anyone knowing," he said.

The property is currently owned by CAW Oost-Vlaanderen, a welfare organisation that provides support to homeless people and others in need across the province. Its director, Geert Hillaert, expressed hope that the find might eventually fund additional shelter places. Under Belgian law, the rightful owner has five years to come forward. If no one successfully claims the hoard — and provided it is not linked to criminal activity — civil law stipulates that it be divided equally between the finders and the property owner. For Buyse, a resolution in the charity's favour would be fitting: "If this money ends up with CAW, the circle is truly complete. That is precisely what the Van Assche family wanted — that something good would be done with their wealth."