The police is seeking your help to find owner of precious item found in backyard

When a woman was in her backyard, the last thing she expected to find was this – $20,000 worth of gold.

The lady discovered the gold in a package at her Kiama property last week and instead of keeping for herself, she handed it in to police at Lake Illawarra police station last Thursday, July 14.

Sergeant Jason Harrison said he was appealing for the gold’s owner to come forward, but he would be unable to describe its unique appearance, reports ABC.

“I’m not going to describe the gold any further other than it is described as gold bullion and someone that is missing gold would be able to give us more details about possibly what it was contained in and how it might be formed,” Sergeant Harrison said as quoted on ABC.

“We’re concerned that an item like this could be falsely claimed, with a gold bullion item it has limited marks and limited descriptions.
“It wasn’t found loose, in her backyard, but I wouldn’t go further to explain how it was located.”

Sergeant Harrison said it was not buried and was found in a part of her backyard where she had not previously seen any items.

He also said the bullion may not even come from the Kiama area and could have been stolen and then dumped or dropped in the backyard by the thief.

He said it “could be the case that they were stolen” and the “offenders have possibly dropped these items in a packaging in this woman’s backyard”.

The value of the gold which was locked at the police station was made based on the weight and the current value of gold, he said.

“Perhaps an owner will be located and we’ll be confident enough to hand it back, if that’s not the case, we will explore what it means to remove these items to a more permanent location.”

He said he hoped the media attention would alert the owner that the gold was missing.

“It’s a very admirable thing that the woman has done, because someone’s missing it … through no fault of their own, perhaps they are now not even aware that it is missing.
“Perhaps they’ve stored it somewhere in a home or something and they are the victim of a crime that they are not yet aware of.

“This might reach out to some people … who for whatever reason decided to store these valuable items somewhere and now they may determine after hearing a bit of talk about it that it’s not there anymore.”

He said the general position was that if you found an item and the genuine owner was not found after six weeks you could make a claim to have it returned to you. In this case, the gold bullion could go the the lady who found it in her backyard.

She did signal that she would like to keep it if no-one comes forward but her identity will be kept secret if that happens.

Sergeant Harrison said there were markings on the gold that could identify it and he urged anyone that was storing gold in their home to check it and to get in touch with Lake Illawarra Police if it was not there.

Will you help the police find the owner?