In this letter we report the serendipitous discovery of a genuine type-II quasar at z = 1.65 using integral-field data from VIMOS on the VLT .
This is the first discovery of a type-II quasar at z > 1 from optical data alone .
J094531-242831 , hereafter J0945-2428 , exhibits strong narrow ( v < 1500 km s ^ { -1 } ) emission lines , has a resolved host galaxy , and is undetected to a radio flux-density limit of S _ { 5 GHz } = 0.15 mJy ( 3 \sigma ) .
All of these lead us to believe that J0945-2428 is a bona fide type-II quasar .

The luminosity of the narrow-emission lines in this object suggest that the intrinsic power of the central engine is similar to that found in powerful radio galaxies , indicative of similarly large supermassive black hole of \sim 3 \times 10 ^ { 8 } M _ { \odot } ( assuming that it is accreting at its Eddington limit ) .
However , from near-infrared imaging observations we find that the old stellar population in the host galaxy has a luminosity of \sim 0.2 ~ { } L ^ { \star } , mildly inconsistent with the correlation between black-hole mass and bulge luminosity found locally , although the uncertainty in the black-hole mass estimate is large .

This discovery highlights the power that integral-field units have in discovering hidden populations of objects , particularly the sought after type-II quasars which are invoked to explain the hard X-ray background .
As such , future large integral-field surveys could open up a new window on the obscured accretion activity in the Universe .