19 Aug 2014 Workers find gold treasure, buy cars and motorbikes

French workers discovered 16 gold bars and 600 gold American $20 coins in glass containers underground. But they concealed the discovery. They bought new cars and motorcycles. They were facing criminal charges...

Three workers discovered the treasure while working on the grounds of a house in Normandy. The value of the bricks and coins was later estimated by experts at 900,000 euros. The finders concealed the treasure from the owner of the house and the authorities, breaking the law and committing theft.

Workers found 16 gold bricks and 600 US $20 gold coins dating from 1924 to 1927 in glass containers underground. Each of the bricks weighed one kilogram, the coins 33 grams each.

Workers aged 40, 33 and 20 from France bought new cars and motorcycles. Two cheques for a large sum of money gave them away. In fact, one of the thieves wanted to transfer one of the cheques to his account, but the institute informed the law enforcers.

The police said the thieves sold the treasure to a collector. The men were charged with theft and the said collector also had to appear in court and confessed to dealing in stolen goods. The owner of the house did not want to tell his children about the treasure. He disclosed that he had joked with the workmen on the subject before they started work on his property. "If you find any treasure, be sure to tell me about it," he reportedly said at the time with a smile.

This is not the only such case of theft of a gold object. Last year in Berlin, for example, convictions were handed down for the theft of the world's largest coin, which disappeared from the Bode Museum here in 2017. Thieves took the 100-kilogram coin, which was worth around €3.75 million. The thieves probably broke it into small pieces and sold it off. The coin was 53 centimetres in diameter and three centimetres thick.

The rare coin, which depicted Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, was minted in Canada in 2007 and only five copies existed in the world. The two defendants, aged 23 and 21, were given prison sentences of four and a half years. Another defendant, a 21-year-old German who worked as a security guard at the museum, received a sentence of three years and four months in prison.

Sources: www.aktualne.cz, www.rozhlas.cz, www.idnes.cz, www.france24.com