BRUGES, Belgium — A criminal court in Bruges has convicted three demolition workers of theft after they uncovered a secret cache of gold coins valued at €240,000 beneath a house cellar and quietly sold off the loot.
The verdict, handed down on September 16, 2025, dismantled the crew's legal defence that the 2019 discovery in Assebroek constituted an innocent accidental windfall under treasure-trove conventions. Judges ruled instead that dividing, concealing, and pawning the rare gold coins amounted to deliberate criminal appropriation.
The treasure belonged to someone else.
Demolition machinery first cracked open the hidden vault in October 2019. The crew was clearing an aged property in Assebroek, an eastern suburb of Bruges, when crane operators accessed a concealed cavity buried beneath the cellar floor. Hidden behind an old safe lay a heavy pot packed with South African Krugerrands and historic Belgian European Currency Unit (ECU) pieces—pre-euro coinage struck before the single currency took over European commerce.
None of it appeared on the official site blueprints. The workers made no emergency call to local authorities, nor did they halt their excavators. Instead, they loaded the hoard into their personal vehicles and split it behind closed doors.
Court records identified the three men as F.M., 46, of Zedelgem; T.D., 46, of Ypres; and P.K., 50, of Oostkamp. But the division of spoils proved severely lopsided, leaving behind an unmistakable paper trail.
F.M. hauled 67 coins—comprising 12 Krugerrands and 55 Belgian ECUs—directly to an Antwerp dealer, walking away with €52,000 in cash. T.D. offloaded his portion for €30,000, quickly burning through the proceeds on cars and gambling sprees. P.K. received the remaining scraps: a single gold coin and €2,000 in cash.
The silence did not last. Rumours of a miraculous subterranean strike slipped out after one worker spoke about the find. A local witness subsequently told neighbours about a mysterious bag of jewellery circulating in the district, alerting the previous homeowner's family.
Long before the excavators moved in, the Assebroek house belonged to an elderly woman who sold the property in 2018 before moving into an assisted-care facility. She was 93 years old by the time the criminal proceedings formally reached the Bruges docket.
Court filings confirmed that neither she nor her family knew the hoard remained tucked behind the cellar safe at the time of sale. She had simply forgotten its existence. In 2020, her family lodged a formal criminal complaint with judicial investigators to recover the full €240,000 valuation.
When the trio stood trial before the Bruges Correctional Court in June 2025, defence counsel Bart Bleyaert pushed back against criminal culpability, insisting the workers lacked felonious intent. Bleyaert argued the stash legally represented ownerless abandoned treasure, which under traditional civil statutes should be divided between the physical discoverers and the parcel's current property owner—not the elderly former resident who relinquished title a year prior.
Attorneys representing the elderly woman countered that transferring real estate did not mean abandoning forgotten personal assets. They demanded full financial restitution of €240,000, arguing the workers deliberately stripped her of her life savings.
The discovery could not simply be treated as an opportunity for the workers to divide and sell the valuables themselves.
Bruges Criminal Court Ruling
| Case Parameter | Legal Determination | Details & Disposition |
|---|---|---|
| Accused Crew | Convicted | F.M. (Zedelgem), T.D. (Ypres), P.K. (Oostkamp) |
| Discovery Date & Site | October 2019 | Concealed cellar cavity, Assebroek property |
| Total Asset Valuation | €240,000 | Krugerrands and pre-euro Belgian ECU coins |
| Traced Liquidations | Confirmed Evidence | €52,000 (Antwerp), €30,000 (cars/gambling), €2,000 + 1 coin |
The Legal Precedent: The Bruges ruling draws a firm boundary across the construction and demolition sectors. Finding unmapped valuables inside private structures during contract work creates an affirmative duty to report the asset to law enforcement and property registries; treating private structural cavities as open-access treasure troves now carries the full weight of a criminal theft record in Belgian law.
The court's formal compensation orders and restitution schedule now move toward enforcement, as civil representatives pursue the convicted men for the full €240,000 value stripped from the pensioner's estate.
| Judicial Ruling |
| Theft Conviction |
| Bruges Criminal Court (September 16, 2025) |