Group sentenced over illegal excavation for gold coins

An appeals court in Thessaloniki has handed a 74-year-old man a four-year jail sentence, which he can buy out, and five co-accused a 12-month prison term suspended for 3 years for their role in an illegal excavation for gold coins in a protected structure in Veria.

The court heard that in September 2018 the men dug to a depth of 24 meters over a 40-day period in the listed building in a fruitless attempt to find gold sovereigns from the time of the German occupation during World War II.

The group used a metal detector, an electric compressor and a generator during their illegal excavation, which revealed no treasure.

"We started at 6 in the morning and left at 8 in the evening. The metal detector was going off and we dug down," one of the defendants said.

The 74-year-old man had told his co-accused that two boxes containing 18,000 sovereigns were buried...