Two men in Poland claim they’ve found an almost mythical Nazi train loaded with $1 billion worth of gold, gems, art and guns, officials said Thursday.
The existence of the train has never been proven, but Polish authorities said they were taking the claim “seriously.”
“We believe that a train has been found,” said Marika Tokarska, an official in the southwestern Polish district of Walbrzych.
The anonymous treasure hunters — a Pole and German — hired lawyers and are petitioning the Polish government for a 10 percent fee in exchange for leading authorities to the train, which they say is 490 feet long and packed with treasure.
Tokarska said hiring a law firm gave credibility to the claims, as does the men’s purported familiarity with its contents. The search, she said, would now be in the hands of “the army, the police and the fire brigade.”
“The area has never been excavated before, and we don’t know what we might find,” she added.
Local lore has it that the train went missing in May 1945 after being dispatched from the then-German city of Breslau, which is now called Wroclaw in southwest Poland, as Nazi forces fled from oncoming Soviet troops.
It supposedly vanished after entering a complex of tunnels under the Owl Mountains, part of a secret project known as “Riese” — or Giant — which the Nazis never finished.
The Third Reich wanted to keep arms and valuables out of enemy hands, and some of the often-stolen loot remains missing to this day. Its existence has been debated ever since.
Jaroslaw Chmielewski, a lawyer for the treasure hunters, compared his clients’ alleged find to the “wreck of the Titanic,” in an interview on local radio.
The 490-foot-long train could be holding 300 tons of gold and other valuables worth $1 billion, according to the Polish news Web site Wiadomosci Walbrzyskie.
Legend of the Nazi gold train has been passed down through generations and is part of popular folklore in southwest Poland.
One popular tale says the train was driven into a secret tunnel — near the 13th century Ksiaz Castle or hills near Piechowice — where it remained and was forgotten, long after the passages were sealed after World War II.
Skeptics said the find could be pure fantasy.
“We have had a lot of stories like that in the last few years, with people claiming they know where the train is,” said Joanna Lamparska, an author who has written about the region and the legendary train.
“I do not know of any account confirming what is said — that the train really existed,” she told RMF FM radio.