Two men in Poland say they have discovered a Nazi train rumoured to have been laden with gold, gems and guns when it disappeared at the end of World War II.

Illustration photo, according to AP.

Local officials in the districtWalbrzych, southwestern Poland, said a law firm representing a Pole and a German had contacted them. The pair said they had located the missing ship and wanted 10 percent of the value of the assets they found, as required by law.

"Lawyers, the army, the police and the fire brigade are dealing with this," Marika Tokarska, an official from the Walbrzych district council, told the BBC. "The area has never been mined so we don't know what we might find."

Local newspapers said the ship went missing in 1945, loaded with treasure taken from the then East German city of Breslau, now Wroclaw in Poland, as the Red Army prepared to advance towards the end of World War II.

Wiadomosci Walbrzyskie, a news site in Walbrzych, said the ship was 150 metres long and could have up to 300 tonnes of gold on board.

Joanna Lamparska, a historian specializing in the Walbrzych area, told Radio Wroclaw that the ship was rumored to have disappeared in a tunnel, and that it was carrying gold and “toxic substances” on board. Previous searches for the ship in the same area had turned up no results, the station said.

According to VNE