Swiss authorities seek owner of gold worth £151,000 left on train

If you happened to leave more than £150,000 worth of gold bars in a Swiss train, you can now come forward to claim it.

Authorities in the central city of Lucerne have said a package containing bars worth about 182,000 Swiss francs was found in a train that arrived from the northern town of St. Gallen in October, and efforts to find the owner failed.

The bars were then seized by Lucerne prosecutors. Regional authorities confirmed on Tuesday a statement from law enforcement over the weekend saying that any claimant has five years to report “justified claims” of ownership.

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The incident is eye-popping even for a wealthy Alpine country with a high cost, and standard, of living.

In a similar incident three years ago, authorities in Geneva turned up wads of cut-up €500 notes that were mysteriously jammed into the toilets of three restaurants and a bank in separate episodes. The shredded notes were once worth tens of thousands of euros.

At the time, Swiss investigators said the money appeared to have come from a safe deposit box in Geneva belonging to unidentified Spanish women.

A lawyer for the women appeared at a local police station, according to the Tribune de Genève, but only offered money to pay for plumbing work at the bank and the three restaurants.