Despite extensive £28,000 dig, treasure hunters find no trace of train said to have been hidden by Germans at Wałbrzych

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Attempts to find a “Nazi gold train” in Poland appear to have been dashed after treasure hunters admitted that they had found “no train, no tunnel” following extensive digging.

The possibility of riches, based on a legend that a train laden with gold and valuables was hidden by Germans in a secret tunnel, as the Soviet army advanced towards them in 1945, has drawn explorers from across Europe to Wałbrzych, a city in south-west Poland.

Andreas Richter, a German, and Piotr Koper, a Pole, moved in with heavy equipment and dug deep at a site near rail tracks in Wałbrzych earlier this month, after residents said they had knowledge of the train’s existence.

Last year, Richter and Koper said tests they conducted using earth-penetrating radar had confirmed that there was a train at the site.

But Andrzej Gaik, a spokesman for the pair, said on Wednesday that they had found nothing, despite an exhaustive search of three pits costing 140,000 zlotys (£28,000).

Gaik said a smaller-scale search using probes would resume at a nearby site in September, adding: “Hope dies last.”

The dig confirmed findings by experts from a university in Kraków, who used magnetic equipment but found no trace of train or tunnel, Gaik said.

An armed train loaded with valuables is said to have disappeared after entering a complex of tunnels, an unfinished Nazi project known as riese (giant), under the Owl Mountains.