Within the mountains of Poland, a crew of metal detectorists stumbled upon ancient treasure associated with a notorious con artist. The team was with the Świętokrzyska Exploration Group.
They had set out to find the buried treasure of the 18th-century Polish conman Anthony Jaczewicz. Clearly, their efforts proved to be successful because they came across a collection of gold and silver coins from the 17th and early 18th centuries.
According to Polish legend, in the early 1700s, Jaczewicz claimed that the Virgin Mary had granted him divine healing powers.
During the Great Northern War, which occurred from 1700 to 1721, a deadly plague swept over the Republic of Poland.
The villagers in the surrounding area were eager to have some protection against the illness, so they all lined up at Jaczewicz’s dwelling in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains to receive a cure. In exchange, they paid him generously.
It is said that Jaczewicz earned so much money from his scam that he transformed his lair into a grand fortress with armed guards. The guards stole from people living nearby and sometimes took over entire properties in the area. Sometimes, they even robbed aristocrats.
In 1712, Jaczewicz was arrested for fraud and sentenced to life in prison. The buried coins that the metal detectorists unearthed may have been a last desperate attempt to hide his riches before he was finally detained.
The excavation project on the mountains began in June 2022. On June 12, they unburied a variety of silver and gold coins, including sixes, orts, patagoons, kopecks, and krajcars.
“It was the largest and most impressive deposit; there were a lot of them. Unfortunately, we cannot talk about numbers yet because conservation works are still ongoing, and the search is still ongoing,” Sebastian Grabowiec, president of the Świętokrzyska Exploration Group, said.
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