 Image copyright Science Photo Library Image caption The buried loot is estimated to be worth 900,000 euros (£720,000) 
 
 Three French workers are to appear in court on charges of stealing gold worth 900,000 euros ($1.2m; £720,000) from a property they worked on, a local French newspaper reports. The men had been working on a house in Normandy for several days when they discovered the loot, estimated to be worth more than €900,000 ($1.2 million), hidden in jars. Rather than alert the owners of the house to their discovery, the workers, aged 20, 33 and 40, decided to steal the gold and sell it to a local coin collector, it is alleged. But tax officials were alerted when one of the workers deposited two high-value cheques in his bank account. When investigators caught up with them, they confessed to their crime, according to the report in regional daily Paris Normandie (in French). The three will appear at a court in Evreux, northwest of Paris, at an unspecified date. The coin collector will also appear before the court on charges of trying to conceal the theft, which he denies. According to the report in regional daily Paris Normandie, the jars contained six gold bars weighing a kilogramme (2.2 lbs) each, and 600 gold $20 coins from 1924 and 1927. Interviewed by Paris Normandie, the owner of the house where the gold was found recounted telling the workers jokingly: "If you find any treasure, you tell me!"
– A secret stash of gold coins and bars is the stuff of fantasies. And when three construction workers found $1.2 million worth on the job in Normandy, police say stealing it from the landowner proved too tempting to resist. Several days into their work leveling land, the laborers found 16 gold bars and 600 gold coins from the 1920s buried in glass jars, perhaps during World War II, the BBC reports. Police say the men—ages 20, 33, and 40—sold the loot to a local coin collector, then bought cars and motorcycles and invested the money in their homes or life insurance policies. But when one of the men deposited suspicious checks—one for $360,000 and the other for $40,000—into his bank account, tax officials perked up, Connexion reports. They contacted authorities, and the men reportedly 'fessed up. Their new toys have been seized, and they now face theft charges, while the coin collector is charged with trying to conceal the theft, reports the Local. The homeowner isn't saying much, telling local paper Paris Normandie: "Since the police called me to tell me what happened, I have found it hard to sleep." (Speaking of secret stashes, someone hid coins in a cave 2,000 years ago.)