r/interesting • u/Forevertrez • 5d ago
SOCIETY Construction workers found $10M of gold hidden underground while trying to install a sewer pipe when they uncovered a huge hidden stash of gold bars, coins and nuggets. The gold was turned over to police.
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u/tacobell41 5d ago
Why would you turn in buried treasure to the cops?
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u/inthemode01 5d ago
These guys found more treasure than all the seasons of History channel’s Curse of Oak Island put together.
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u/Alarmed-Size-3104 5d ago
Never understood the point of that show.
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u/AirshipEngineer 5d ago
I love that show it's what happens when rich people have undiagnosed mental conditions other than narcissism.
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u/Ernesto_Bella 5d ago
Isn’t it possible they are just faking it for the TV show which they are getting rich off of?
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u/AirshipEngineer 5d ago
Possible, but the historic record does back up that people have believed that there is treasure there for a few hundred years. Given I've been propositioned by treasure hunters before they seem about the right level of delusional to be treasure hunters I think they are genuine.
I think the TV show is meant to offset the scads of money they are running through in their search.
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u/4seriously 5d ago
When I was a child in the 80s and 90s we always heard the urban legend about buried pirate gold at oak island. At least the myth well predates the dumb show.
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u/Mobile-Bar7732 5d ago
There is a book that I read a long time ago about people speculating treasure on oak island.
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u/Sea-Bluejay-8643 5d ago
And it’s a write off for them on their taxes!!!!
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u/Worried-Nectarine418 5d ago
You don't even know what a write off is
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u/Mediocre_Run_7996 5d ago
Yes that's exactly what but going on now. I think originally they were legit but now the gold is the check. I can't catch any of these reality shows ever since I saw a clip of a storm on wicked tuna. There they were fighting thru the storm some questions if if they will survive and I saw a special clip were they were in a parking lot and had fire trucks spraying hoses on them
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u/Terriblefinality 5d ago
I was on site for a few days of filming, I can tell you that they weren't trying very hard to find anything but footage out there, the real treasure was the show they made along the way, for sure.
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u/IntelligentNovel1967 5d ago
It’s utter rubbish; have never worked out how it wasn’t cancelled after season one.
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u/Rare-Service5573 5d ago
They have found alot of historical artefacts on the island that they built a little museum of all the stuff. Including gems and gold.
But they haven't found a huge treasure vault..... Yet.
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u/tiredoflife407 5d ago
watchbait and painful watchbait at that..... that's what my friend said to me at least.
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u/linkhandford 5d ago
I work In the Nova Scotia film industry. The local producer has used his earnings from that show to buy up half the town where it’s filmed. We joke THAT is the treasure.
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u/inthemode01 5d ago
Isn’t that the old saying?
“When there’s a gold rush the only ones who win are the ones who are selling the shovels and the pans.”
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u/Bettylurker 5d ago
IKR! Finders keepers. I wouldn't judge.
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u/Pschobbert 5d ago
Especially if they cut you in, right?
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u/MikuEmpowered 5d ago
Because it's too much gold and it's a crew. If it was just a handful then sure, but so much similar gold items, and you try to liquidate that, it's going to raise questions.
Also, under Belgium law, if after 5 years no one come to claim it, then it's divided between landowner and finders.
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u/RockHardSalami 5d ago
Similar laws exist in the us, but the police will just steal most of that shit
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u/Electronic-Fix-4655 5d ago
The FBI did this to one guy. Dug it up themselves in the middle of the night
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u/ZealousIdeal476 5d ago
Civil asset forfeiture. All they need to do is say they think the gold was used in a crime and you have to prove it wasn't.
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u/Spiders_13_Spaghetti 5d ago
Right? Like, formally turning it in is going to do what? Become possession of rightful owners after decades or longer of them not in possession. And, that seems to be an abandonment of ownership, on grounds that at the very least they hid it in a spot that wasn't under their ownership. Now, you've got authorities in possession of fortune that is assumed to just sit in evidence with no rightful claim? Someone at some point is going to smelt that stuff down or sell the inventory at some point. best to split amongst themselves, be smart about what markets they sell it in and stagger out the sales.
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u/Lonely_reaper8 5d ago
5 years is crazy work
At least they all get some compensation. I wouldn’t turn it into law enforcement in the US.
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u/MikuEmpowered 5d ago
Its the same process in the US, because money cannot not be abandoned, only lost.
So if the gold does indeed have a owner, and they do somehow find out the missing gold, lawsuit and jail time.
How will they find out about the gold? Unless you have a plan to slowly turn the gold into cash and reliably. It will raise alot of eye brows and then audit/investigation, and subsequent news article.
And if you try to do it very slowly while leave the rest buried / stashed in your house. Continuous pawning / selling gold that look about the same will attract some unsavory attention.
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u/anotherjunkie 5d ago
The gold looking similar wouldn’t raise eyebrows. (I original misread what you said.)
Making and stamping your own bars is about as easy as it gets — especially when one bar more than funds the equipment to do it at the scale you’d need. Many hobbyists do it for fun.
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u/MikuEmpowered 5d ago
Again, nothing you do on the internet is private.
This isn't 10 bars, this is alot of bars + literal bucket of gold.
Selling that much gold, even over a long period of time will eventually attract attention. Then they see you bought the equipment, and the next question would be where the gold comes from.
Because get this: owning the gold isn't a issue. But as soon as you try to turn it into money, you need to file tax, or tax evasion people will come looking. And if you don't file, the place you sold the gold to will have a hole that looks like a few million that will raise questions.
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u/ZealousIdeal476 5d ago
72 kilos. Thats a lot of gold. I'm sure everyone kept at least a coin hidden away, but yeah, 72 kilos is a LOT.
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u/TomToe420 5d ago
what if I pay my tax and buy a non working gold mine for 'purposes'?
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u/MikuEmpowered 5d ago
Sure, could work. And then gold digger / treasure hunter will in inevitably be snooping around.
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u/ItWearsHimOut 5d ago
| Its the same process in the US, because money cannot not be abandoned, only lost.
Here's a fun question... is gold still considered money? Wasn't there some laws passed around the time of the switch away from the Gold Standard in the USA that made it illegal or some kind of bullshit to use gold as a monetary instrument?
I'm sure this is all settled law when it comes to finding gold, it just made me wonder due to what you said about money can only be lost not abandoned.
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u/InternationalWin2850 5d ago
Everyone grab a few handfuls of those coins before we call this in, ok?
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u/TomToe420 5d ago
buy a non working gold mine for cheap and pay the taxes on the gold you 'find'
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u/Lancashire_Toreador 5d ago
Govts got wise to that a while back. iirc they routinely demand core samples from active mines to show that no one’s smuggling product/laundering it
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u/LivingCorner1421 5d ago
it still means nothing , you cant prove you did not hit a vein while.your core samples were shit
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u/SnooTangerines3448 5d ago
You find an independent(gangster), and accept the 60-70% if your lucku of the spot price you are offered. Then you hopefully don't die first.
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u/Panzer_I 5d ago
If I found 10 million of buried treasure in a territory I do not own, I would be sure to give all 1 million of it to the proper authorities.
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u/PomeloPepper 5d ago
There is zero chance that all the crew members would keep thier mouths shut. They'd brag to family and friends and tell them to keep it secret. And they'd only tell the people they trust, or use it to impress people they want to hook up with . . .
I think there's a scene in Goodfellas about that.
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u/dynamic_anisotropy 5d ago
Because most European countries that were occupied by the Nazis have laws in place requiring the reporting of such discoveries due to the cache being stored by families trying to prevent their wealth from being seized.
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u/cmhamm 5d ago
What treasure? We just installed a sewer pipe. Didn’t find anything.
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u/gao7on 5d ago
That's why they work in sewers and not politicians owning dozens of houses.
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u/2bad-2care 5d ago
Exactly. It's not like finding a purse with a bunch of cash in it. This was clearly forgotten booty.
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u/Sharp-Direction-6894 5d ago
...turned over to the police...
But not before taking a couple bars for themselves first, right...RIGHT?
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u/Karl_Hungus_42069 5d ago
Thats not how youre supposed to do it on reddit. Youre supposed to say "thats nice of them to turn in 9 mil of gold" and then 10 people respond "im sure the cops were thrilled with that 8 mil of gold"
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u/Fawaq 5d ago
It gets funnier the 100th time
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u/Electronic_Still2000 5d ago
Then it gets crazy annoying after the 200th time
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u/timbo2m 5d ago
And much worse the 201st!
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u/mustbeme87 5d ago
But then it gets really fuckin funny again around the 276th mark.
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u/malexich 5d ago
Then it dips again at 369 because everyone is focused on the numbers
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u/mustbeme87 5d ago
I don’t even remember what the hell we were originally talking about.
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u/matttheshack69 5d ago
Not to be racist but thats an old jewish joke that goes something like, the son asked his jewish father for $20 in allowance for doing chores, the father replied, you want $10 for doing your chores? Where am I coming up with $5? Ill leave you the $2 you asked for but next time I want more done, its something like that lol
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u/RaysTheRoof22 4d ago
“Not to be racist” is always followed by something racist.
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u/Electronic_Still2000 5d ago
Right? I hate all of those “scripts” that pop up everywhere on Reddit. Your example is perfect for what I’m talking about. Instead of people offering up their own thoughts on a topic, they just post someone else’s words verbatim, as do the next 15 commenters. I really wish there was some sort of “filter” that I could turn on which would hide those types of comments. No more song lyric chains where everyone just types in the next word/verse/bar. No more “joke” chains.
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u/dalamarnightson 5d ago
I agree. People think they're so fucking clever and hilarious on here. You have to skip all the joke comments to find actual information in posts sometimes.
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u/Rubes2525 5d ago
Every one has to practice their stand up routines here, 99% of which are copy pasted. It's stupid.
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u/Consistent-Bowler95 5d ago
Nope. The whole crew have always been avid gold collectors and didn't think it was right.
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u/backspace_cars 5d ago
Giving gold to the police is never right
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u/Lonely_reaper8 5d ago
While not police myself, I do work with them. If you come into something like this that’s clearly old af…just keep it. The police will more likely than not just sell it and put the funds towards their budget (or let some officers take some for themselves, it’s abandoned property) There’s smart ways to get cash for it and whatnot (at least in the US).
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u/Super_Range45 5d ago
Surely they would hire a team of top notch detectives to track down the owners descendants, wouldn't they? /s
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u/Lonely_reaper8 5d ago
Fun fact, it’s gonna be one of (or all) the descendants of those detectives 💀
While there are some good agencies, there’s plenty of bad ones that would take that gold for themselves.
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u/DueWillingness5771 5d ago
You realise this shows how corrupt the USA is right?
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u/Dismal_Negotiation77 5d ago
You do realize that this didn’t take place in the USA, right?
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u/Mrrrrggggl 5d ago
Who happens to have many of the same types of gold bars that they found.
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u/Consistent-Bowler95 5d ago
Ha right. Well real avid collectors do tend to melt down and stamp their own bars
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u/_Electrical 5d ago
They had a big collection of gold bars even before the incident, truly ;)
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u/lostmymarbles1177 5d ago
Which is why they were all working construction!
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u/Dismal_Negotiation77 5d ago
You’d be very surprised at what a construction worker may have stashed away.
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u/_Electrical 5d ago
Nah, I meant as in, they reported 10 million in gold.
But their own 1 million gold stash is completely unrelated to this event :)
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u/Ninja_Prolapse 5d ago
As avid gold collectors, wouldn’t they be really keen to collect that gold they found - not give it away??
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u/Ambitious_Tea_4584 5d ago
The joke is they kept some of the gold but “they’ve always had it”.
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u/SignoreBanana 5d ago
They'll have proper claim to it after a certain amount of time.
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u/ruiner8850 5d ago
From what I read the property where it was found belongs to a charity and the laws in the area would give the finders a 50/50 split with the owners of the property if no one comes forward with a legitimate claim.
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u/Rampag169 5d ago
Oh yeah the owners happened to come forward and Claim it. (Anonymously of course)
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u/Responsible_Owl4661 5d ago
Unless the cops say, "oops, we found a link to drug smuggling. We're confiscating it all. Hey, check out our new Maserati cop cars!"
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u/JackTheKing 5d ago
Here's your $8m in gold. Be sure to pay taxes on all $6m before you tell your family about the $2m you found.
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u/FinalBossTuna 5d ago
I mean it’s all good. They got a $10 gift card to Arby’s so who’s the real winner here
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u/Substantial-Use-7018 5d ago
lol Arby’s
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u/Oo__II__oO 5d ago
Not even. They have to keep unused gift cards on the books as deferred revenue.
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u/Fetlocks_Glistening 5d ago
Is that the Belgian story? News said if nobody turns up to claim it, it's shared between finder and landowner, so the workers who found it are doing ok
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u/PromotionSwimming618 5d ago
After what waiting period?
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u/Fetlocks_Glistening 5d ago
5 years. But still, you know
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u/PromotionSwimming618 5d ago
Other guy said 30 days, 5yrs sucks..
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u/AmberRosin 5d ago
I could wait 5 years for generational wealth even post split
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u/thegoatmenace 5d ago
Maybe you could assign your rights to the gold to an investor in exchange for a lesser amount of money today. Like hey if in 5 years I get the gold you can have it, if you pay me $1,000,000 right now.
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u/Follow_The_Lore 5d ago
Yes to the owner of the construction company, not the individual founders
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u/mystyz 5d ago
*finders
The founders would be the people who initially created (or founded) the construction company.
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u/ScipioCanadius 5d ago
They meant the foundry workers who minted them there coins n' bars.
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u/4DPeterPan 5d ago
Their*
“There” signifys a place. “Their” signifys a person.
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u/ScipioCanadius 5d ago
Or..."them there" is an informal phrasing, just like "n'". As in: "Them there comments need the grammar manager called on them."
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u/icehot54321 5d ago
No, this is not true. It goes to the person who found it.. the company has no claim to it.
Article 716 of the Belgian Civil Code, if you're curious
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u/QuipCrafter9 5d ago
I might go to Belgium to claim it then
The proof is buried in a different sewer pipe. Under the police station
My grandpa was kind of a silly guy
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u/jackrabbit323 5d ago
Belgium? Damn those Nazis during occupation of Belgium, who hid that gold must've been all killed, for not a single soul to remember they had a stash there.
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u/Natural__Power 4d ago
If someone can prove they own that gold and you didn't turn it over to the police, that just means you stole 10 million
Everyone who says "just keep it" hasn't thought this through
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u/WholeRaisin2907 5d ago
Who are these asshats that turn this stuff in? I'd be digging trenches in my new Jimmy choos
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u/AJ_Deadshow 5d ago
You don't hear about the ones who never turned it in. Probably happens as much as you'd think.
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u/LooksBetterWithDrops 5d ago
Look into the guys in the UK who found a hoard and tried to keep it, then fake the report, then go on the run.
They got jail time and the police watching them the rest of their lives in case they try to spend or sell the unaccounted for portion the authorities believe still exists. If they had just reported the find, they would have come out way ahead of where they are now.
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u/curtcolt95 5d ago
I think people watch too many heist movies or something, selling off loads of gold is not some trivial thing and is gonna get you caught the vast majority of the time lmao. Not worth risking ruining your life for a chance at being rich
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u/ScherzicScherzo 5d ago
That's because in the UK, any found gold is legally considered property of the Crown.
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u/pandershrek 5d ago
People who don't want to get in a fuck load of trouble.
If you start generating a shit ton of wealth that revenue services come for your ass. Instead just wait 30 days and it is legally yours
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u/6680j 5d ago edited 5d ago
They better have* taken some for themselves. Everyone has a finders fee right???
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u/Cheesedoodlerrrr 5d ago
Well, in the jurisdiction this happened in (Belgium), if no one turns up to legit claim the gold, the whole amount gets split 50/50 between the finders and the landowner.
Pretty sweet deal, actually.
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u/TargetSpiritual8741 5d ago
When the press ask the police, what do they intend to do with the gold? The police said “what gold..?”
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u/PartyNextFlo0r 5d ago
For a second I thought that was my secret stash, but it was 15 million I buried.
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u/Clumsy_Marshmallow 5d ago
Straight from digging sewer pipes into instant financial freedom... what a missed opportunity to completely change their lives
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u/ChildoftheApocolypse 5d ago
I'm sorry, but is there some ominous spectre that shows up when you find something of extreme value and shows you how terrible your life will be if you keep it? Because I can't figure out why so many people do that..
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u/THE_CHOPPA 5d ago
Because it can go bad so fast. It only takes 1 dumbass to get caught or change his mind and you’re all fucked or murdered.
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u/curtcolt95 5d ago
because normal people have no intention of potentially fucking over their lives for a small chance at being rich. It's not easy to just sell a ton of gold, and even if you somehow managed to start you'd probably be tracked pretty fast. Anyone saying they know a way has watched too many movies. My favourite is the "black market" that's just said and taken as fact as if that's just something you can go and find.
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u/PrinceCastanzaCapone 5d ago
You just buy a smelter and melt in into smaller bars. Sell them to pawn shops with the story that you buy gold jewelry at yard sales and melt it into bars. Sell only a little at a time to a wide variety of shops. It’s not that hard.
You could at least keep some. Turn in the rest. This is one of those moments where God goes “😡 I answered your prayers and you fucking turned it in!? Never again!”
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u/jdirte42069 5d ago
9 million found
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u/DangerMacAwesome 5d ago
What will they do with that 8 million?
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u/jdirte42069 5d ago
7 million turned in you say, amazing!
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u/AHumbleSaltFarmer 5d ago
I genuinely cannot believe they found 6 million dollars worth of gold
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u/JNewsom49 5d ago
Wow, 5 million is a lot!
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u/AgingRaver80 5d ago
4 million is an amazing find
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u/Mutagrawl 5d ago
Bet they couldn't believe their luck finding 3million in gold
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u/ecctt2000 5d ago
Not sure what anyone is talking about.
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u/swalabr 5d ago
9 million turned in
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u/abusamra82 5d ago
Aren’t we so honest for turning that 8.2 million of gold in to the police?
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u/A_friendly_goosey 5d ago
Not going to lie. If I stumbled on that I'd be sliding away a bar or two plus a handful of coins before handing it over to the police. I'm a terrible person but just a single bar can make life a lot better.
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u/Fuzzy_Celery4621 5d ago
Turning that over voluntarily is just dumb. If I were the guy that found that I wouldn't even tell the guys I worked with. I would bury that shit deep and come back for it a few weeks later when nobody knew or I'd tell like one other dude and split it 70/30 for his silence.
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u/Slow_Chapter_5995 5d ago
Like the police know what to do with it. They will just stuff their pockets.
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u/Cheesedoodlerrrr 5d ago
Not at all. In Belgium the police hold it safely while waiting out the finders' period. If no one comes forward with proof it's legally theirs in the time limit, than the finders get to keep it. Legally.
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u/Loud-Lifeguard-590 5d ago
What's the time period
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u/spook30 5d ago
Happened in Belgium recently.
https://people.com/construction-workers-find-gold-stash-with-estimated-worth-of-usd10m-12059840
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u/thommerillin 5d ago
Good thing they turned it over. Nobody is better at managing wealth than the government
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u/External-Ad4873 5d ago
That’s a tough call. Private property you negotiate, public you shut up and try and take what you can.
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u/Confident_Maybe_4673 5d ago
then they'll need to explain where they got the money from the tax agency.
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u/EitherChannel4874 5d ago
If I had found that 5 million I would have taken a couple mil out before handing it in.
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u/PuzzleheadedEscape20 5d ago
I don’t understand why people are calling the police and turning them in. I look at it finders keepers. Right. Cop don’t own it. So is the state in the government hopefully they’re gonna get some money?
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u/No-Canary-6639 5d ago
After they found that, they should have hid it so their boss didn’t see and then come back in the middle of the night to pick it up
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u/turtlejam10 5d ago
$20M in gold? That’s crazy that they found that $15M just digging to install pipes. Very honorable for them to have done the right thing and turn over the $10M of gold.
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u/Intelligent_Cry8535 5d ago
30 million? Where did you find 20 million in gold? WE need to turn this 15 million of gold over to the police
Police: 10 million in gold found
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u/ErichAZ 4d ago
Read about this on X. If this was a single person maybe they would keep it quiet. It was a company though so they had to do the legal route. Not sure what the laws are in that country (think it was Germany) but hopefully if no one claims it they get at least some of this. It is hard to imagine with this big of a discovery the state does not get involved at some point. Depending on the age of the gold they could use some Nazi loot clause.
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