Over 350 bars of fake ‘gold’ found, four treasure hunters detained in Turkey’s Antalya

ANTALYA

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Over 350 plaster bars covered in gold paint were found in a cave in the southern province of Antalya on Dec. 29 and four treasure hunters were detained. 

After three days of excavations carried out in a mountainous area in Antalya’s Kemer district, teams supervised by archaeologists found that the bars were placed by a suspected fraud group to deceive four other suspects, identified as B.H.Ş, S.Ç., A.B. and M.K., who attempted to conduct an unlicensed excavation work to discover what they believed were gold. 

The Antalya Governor’s Office was notified on Dec. 23 after an individual filed a complaint about the unauthorized excavation inside the cave located in the Göynük neighborhood of Kemer and said that large amounts of gold were found. 

The statement said the suspects, who dug the 369 plaster bars three meters underneath the surface inside the cave, have also placed a surveillance camera inside the cave by drilling four meters of rock. It was reported that the fraud group used footage from the surveillance camera to deceive the four suspects who conducted the excavations.