Tuesday was like any other day at the construction site but not for long because today something happened that would be a topic all over the internet. Kobe is an 18-year-old Belgian student who got a job digging trenches for a new sewage system but what he found was gold.
The discovery happened August 11, 2026, at a former brewery property on Van Langenhovestraat in Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde, about 30 kilometers northwest of Brussels. Workers from the firm De Brand were removing foundation sections to lay drainage pipes beneath a late-19th-century villa when something shiny appeared in the dirt.
“At first I thought they were €1 coins,”
Kobe told Belgian broadcasters.
“So we started digging them up. Then we saw a gold bar. It turned out to be a bit more than we thought.”
His first reaction, he said, was
“disbelief, amazement.”
They kept finding more: gold coins, nuggets, and dozens of numbered bullion bars, roughly 40 to 50 according to early reports, stashed in a bag or chest that had been deliberately bricked into a former cellar wall.
Police photos later showed piles of bars and coins. The estimated value sits around €9 million, or roughly $10 million to $10.4 million, though that figure remains provisional pending a full official inventory, purity tests, and gold-price fluctuations. No complete public list has been released.
This property originally belonged to the family of the Van Assche brewery company. Brewing operations began in 1899 under Theophilus Van Assche and continued until 1970. This villa is currently being restored by CAW Oost-Vlaanderen, the social welfare organization, to convert into an office and dwelling space. There have been some speculations among local historians about the possible connection between the gold and the once wealthy family, but no evidence supports this claim.
They immediately informed their managers from CAW as well as the authorities.
“€9m – that you cannot hide,”
Kobe said. The site manager, Mario, explains what happened:
“They shouted to me that they had discovered gold and I took a few pieces while watching new pieces coming out.”
It was quite an unusual experience. The authorities cataloged the treasure and moved it to a secured federal location in Brussels. The public prosecutor’s office for East Flanders is trying to establish the origin of the treasure to see whether it is stolen property or not.
Ownership has not been set yet. According to the Belgian law, potential rightful owners usually have five years to appear. If no claims are left and it is decided that the gold was not acquired illegally, there might be the division of the gold according to the civil law. The possible claimants could be the construction workers, CAW Oost-Vlaanderen, and the descendants of former owners if there were any. Headlines about the student finding half of the gold and leaving with one million are too early. Kobe mentioned that he will be glad if he could receive a finder’s fee, and the director of CAW’s declared that a part of the gold could be spent on charity. The investigation is ongoing.
An 18-year-old student named Kobe, having a summer job at construction, and his colleagues discovered bricks with old gold coins, nuggets, and numbered bullion bars (dozens of bars, a considerable number of coins) during the sewer construction on August 11, 2026. On the territory of the former brewery Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde. They immediately called the police, and the found treasure was placed under custody. The police secured the found treasure in a vault. Prosecutors are investigating the case; they should determine the ownership of the gold. The total value of the gold can reach up to €9 million or about $10 million.
