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An 18-year-old student working at a summer job in Belgium found something that few would have thought possible. While helping labourers dig trenches to set up a new sewage system, the young man found himself coming across a trove of gold coins, which are said to be worth about €9 million (£8 million).

This finding was made at a former brewery located at Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde, approximately 19 miles north-west of Brussels, as reported by The Guardian. It is this student, known only as Kobe, who discovered what at first seemed like normal coins but then proved to be something much more precious.

At First I Thought It Was €1 Coins

Kobe recalled the moment while speaking to Belgian news network VTM.

“We suddenly saw something lying there,” he said. “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 workers continued digging and uncovered more gold coins, nuggets and numbered bullion bars. The treasure had apparently been hidden inside a bag. It was found in a bricked-in cellar wall beneath a large villa once built for brewery owner Theophilus Van Assche. The discovery appears to have been carefully concealed.

“It’s just not something you expect when you’re working on a regular Tuesday morning,” Kobe said.

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

Gold Found Beneath Historic Brewery Villa

The site has a long history. Brewing operations began there in 1899 and continued until 1970. The property, known as the Brouwershuis, is now undergoing a major renovation. The social welfare organisation CAW Oost-Vlaanderen is converting the historic site into offices and housing. The building itself is being extensively stripped during the work.

“The Brouwershuis was a beautiful building, but it is being completely gutted,” Geert Hillaert of CAW told HLN.

“Ultimately, only the walls will remain.”

Workers were laying drainage pipes when they came across the hidden treasure. The property still carries signs of its past. Its wrought-iron gates bear the initials “VA”, linked to the Van Assche family.

Who Owns the €9 Million Treasure?

The discovery has now created a major legal question. The gold has been handed over to authorities and moved to a secure facility in Brussels. Officials must first establish where the treasure came from. They also need to determine whether it was legally owned or could be connected to stolen property or criminal activity.

Hanne Ollevier of the East Flanders public prosecutor’s office told HLN that the case could lead to a complex civil dispute. Several parties could potentially make a claim. These include the building contractors, the organisation managing the property and descendants of the Van Assche family.

Former Dendermonde mayor Piet Buyse suggested that the gold could have belonged to the wealthy brewery family. The Van Assche’s fortune had “certainly stayed in the family,” he told HLN. He added that it would not surprise him if they had invested some of their wealth in gold and hidden it somewhere secure.

Belgian Law Could Give Finder a Share

For Kobe and his colleagues, the decision to report the discovery was immediate.

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

Under Belgian law, potential owners have at least five years to come forward in cases involving treasure. If no rightful owner is identified within that period, the treasure may be divided between the finder and the property owner, provided it is not linked to a crime. For now, however, Kobe will have to wait.

From Summer Job to Once-in-a-Lifetime Discovery

The teenager said the scale of the find only became clear as the excavation continued. “We kept unearthing more coins and bars. It was only then that it really sank in what we’d found. It was a strange feeling,” he said.

What began as an ordinary Tuesday morning job has now become an extraordinary treasure story. The gold remains under secure custody as authorities investigate its history and ownership. For Kobe, the unexpected discovery has transformed a routine summer job into a moment he is unlikely to forget.

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