German girl to keep solid gold bar she found swimming in Alpine lake

A 16-year-old girl who found a solid gold bar while swimming in an Alpine lake will be allowed to keep it after an owner failed to come forward.

The German teenager, from Essen, was on holiday in the picturesque town of Schönau am Königsee when she made the discovery in August.

She saw the 500g (17.6-ounce) ingot around six feet below the water’s surface in August and handed it in to police.

But six months on, no genuine owner has come forward to claim the bar, believed to be worth around €16,000 meaning its finder gets to keep it.

The incredible find became a global news story, with speculation over whether it could be “Nazi gold” or buried loot from a robbery.

The Berchtesgadener Anzeiger newspaper reported that experts swiftly confirmed that the gold bullion was not from the Third Reich but found “no concrete evidence of origin or ownership”.

The only certainty is that it was manufactured by Degussa, the company’s name that was stamped into it alongside a serial number and weight.