How two friends found £3m treasure and ended up in jail

When detectives were hunting for a metal-detectorist-turned-convict, they got a lead from a surprising source.

A Facebook appeal to find the wanted man was getting a flurry of attention - because the man himself, George Powell, had complained in a comment that he was "hungover" in the picture used by police.

"There was a lot of comments supporting George, saying he didn't do anything wrong [and that] he shouldn't have been in prison," said local reporter Holly Morgan.

But what Ms Morgan did not immediately realise was that Powell, alongside his friend Layton Davies, had been convicted of stealing one of the biggest treasure finds in the history of the British Isles, worth £3m.

The story dates back more than 1,000 years, to early medieval Britain.

Gold jewellery, silver ingots and hundreds of coins were buried by an unknown person, most likely a member of a retreating Viking army.

The treasures were lost to history until one morning in June 2015 when - in a field near Leominster, Herefordshire - metal detectorists Powell, from Newport, and Davies, from Pontypridd, began sweeping the land.

When the pair uncovered the long lost trove, they assumed they would be rich and their lives would change forever.

But only one of those statements proved to be correct.

You need permission from a landowner to detect on their land, and Powell and Davies did not have permission to be in the field where they made the discovery.

Then, rather than reporting the find to the landowner and the local coroner within 14 days as required by law, the duo put the multi-million-pound Anglo-Saxon treasure into a carrier bag and returned to Wales, where they shared pictures of their find on a detectorists' site.

They deleted the pictures from the site and their phones soon afterwards - but the internet, and police detection software, never forgets.

Powell also tried to find out more about the haul, by contacting coin dealer Paul Wells at an antique shop in Cardiff.

Accompanied by antiques dealer, Jason Sallam, when Wells saw about 12 of the silver coins spread out on a table he was flabbergasted.

"It was as if they were put in the ground on the day they were minted," Wells told Fool's Gold, a new BBC podcast examining the case.

"As if they'd never been used to buy a loaf, or a pint of beer.

"I had a lens in my pocket which I used to look at them. At first glance, I thought they were medieval, 11th or 12th Century.

"Mr Sallam was excited and he said they were probably 7th or 8th Century."

Powell and Davies lied and told the dealers they had had permission from the landowner to dig, before producing the crowning glory of the find - three pieces of gold jewellery.

"My eyes nearly fell out of my head. They said the coins and the jewellery were together when found and that the coins had been found with the jewellery on that same day."

The dealers warned the pair they were in dangerous territory and must declare the find, but Wells said Powell was getting excited and not listening to what he was saying.

Wells then agreed to take a few of the coins and "look after them".

The coins would later be revealed to feature the heads of both Alfred the Great, who ruled Wessex, and Ceolwulf II of Mercia, the ancient kingdom covering the area where the coins were found.

Coins like these have changed the view of the relationship between the two kingdoms, showing an alliance not previously thought to exist, as the nation state which would become England was emerging.

Peter Reavill, who in 2015 was a finds liaison officer for the British Museum's Portable Antiquities Scheme, was the sort of person Powell and Davies should have turned to for advice about the find.

"There was this rumour going around, which means something important had been found, and the details were that someone's found a massive medieval coin hoard and there were at least 300 coins," Mr Reavill told Fool's Gold.

"The story was that two lads had come up from south Wales and found it. So we knew it wasn't somebody local and at that time we hadn't got specific names associated with it."

Mr Reavill tapped into his network of detectorists to see "if anyone's heard anything solid, and they all come back saying they've heard roughly the same thing: a massive medieval hoard had been found near Leominster".

The deleted photos that Powell and Davies had shared online made their way to Mr Reavill, who could see there was more than one coin with very similar markings and evidence of being buried in the same place.

He tracked down an email address for Powell and Davies and told them he had heard they had found objects which qualified as treasure, and reminded them they had 14 days to report it.

"Quite an open, honest approach... You've got 14 days to do the right thing," said Mr Reavill.

But once again, Powell and Davies failed to follow advice.

They did give up the jewellery to Museums Wales, but the bulk of the 300 coins remained "lost".

At this point, police began investigating.

In 2019, Powell and Davies' actions culminated in them both being convicted of theft and concealing their finds.

Powell was jailed for 10 years, later reduced to six-and-a-half on appeal, while Davies was jailed for eight-and-a-half, later reduced to five.

Wells was convicted for concealing the find and handing a 12-month suspended jail sentence.

Powell and Davies served their sentences but were later ordered by a court to repay around £600,000 each, because the judge said he believed they were still unlawfully concealing up to 270 coins and jewellery with a view to profiting from them.

Because most of the coins have not been recovered, estimates of the hoard's value vary from £2m to £10m.

After an enforcement hearing in September 2024, Davies was sentenced to a further five years and three months in prison for failing to repay the £600,000.

Powell, however, went on the run, leading to the notorious Facebook post last October.

Ms Morgan got into an online conversation with Powell after seeing the post.

"He said, 'I'm not running from anything,'" she told Fold's Gold.

Powell was eventually arrested and detained in Edinburgh, before being released from custody in December.

But when he was due to appear in court in January 2025 to answer the charge of failing to repay the £600,000, he went on the run again.

And there, so far, he remains.

Fool's Gold is available on BBC Sounds from Thursday 20 March.