My Presciption? You Caught Gold Fever

Sometimes you fight the law and the law wins, but other times... luck is on your side and you win. That's the story here today. A pair of treasure hunters go to extraordinary lengths to recover lost gold and then have to fight the law to win the rights to their find. And as always things get... ridiculous!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Elizabeth Dunton Saren Burnett. So we meet again, we do. Ha,
I got a question for you.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Do you know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
I know it's ridiculous. Okay, I'll tell you it's ridiculous.
First of all, not a mashup.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
What Sarah checks the calendar? Not my birthday? What the Hellbeth?

Speaker 3 (00:26):
But I do want to talk. It's something I want
to talk about, something very serious. And that sunburns your heart,
well yeah, I mean I just burst into flames if
I'm outside. I know I can wear a hat and
sunblock and get sunburned so easily.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, there's two risks you run when you go outside.
Mosquito bites and sunburns.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, that's me. And yet I'm outside all the time.
It's my favorite place to be is outside. But then
I'm like covered.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Anyway, enough about me. So you know sunburns are bad.
It leads to skin cancer.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Does it? Yeah? I know that.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah. And one of the things that really freaked me
out was knowing or reading that you have to be
really careful about like your scalp, the part in your
hair and such can get sunburned and you don't know it,
and that you get you don't know it.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
I've known some red hair, No, you get.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Sure, and I've actually had like appealing on the hair.
But then you can get skin cancer there and you
don't know it because you don't really like inspect it. Okay,
it is you know what though? It is?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yes, yes, I've heard that even with melanin. Yes, I've
heard this.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
It is very dangerous.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
It's so much farther below my other problems going outside.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
But I'm just I'm just saying everyone should wear sunblock.
I don't care what I.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Do if I go around water because of the bouncing
sunlight off the water there, I will. But other than that,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
But also keep in mind that you know, the medical
community when they do the research and teach on how
to find abnormalities on skin, it's on white skin, yes,
so most doctors don't even know how to look for
things on the dark skin.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
But also you have to keep in mind that when
I go outside, I'm usually wearing a hat and long
sleeve shirts, so.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
In a hoodie.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Unless my hands get burnt.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
The other day, like you went out fishing, it's hot.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yeah, and then I took my hoodie off eventually because
we've got too hot. I friends like a long sleeve
black shirt. Friends like, you did know it's gonna be
eighty five degrees. I'm like yeah, He's like, well, at
least you're not wearing long underwear. I was like, well,
I almost did try me because I knew it was
going to be near water.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
You do wear a long underwear. I've heard. Okay, so sunburns, sure,
skin cancer, some of the like, because they had the
whole ozone layer thing in Australia. Okay, the problem I
remember that, and they've like rebuilt whatever. But they're very
sensitive Australia New Zealand or like at the forefront of
skin cancer prevention, skin cancer diagnosis and like all the

(02:55):
like sun exposure protection. So they wanted they still there's
still it's not enough, Sarah, And they want to raise awareness.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
This is where we get to the ridiculousness.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yeah, and they want to do something that will shed
light on the risk of in car uv ray exposure.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Oh the sunburned get driving, Yes exactly. Now.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
I will tell you we have Will Miller to thank
for this. He sent us an email tipping us off
will Miller, So, an Australian company reupholstered a camery with
human like skin that burns in sunlight. Thank you for
having that reaction. I legitimately I thought I was gonna

(03:38):
throw up when I was looking at the pictures. It
made me I had to like close the website and
then like Pete back in. There's a video. I can't
watch it because you can see on the headrest they've
put hair. There's like hair coming out of it, like
a hairy back, and there are moles and uh. Anyway,
so what happens is that it shows you they've reupholstered

(04:01):
the entire interior of this Toyota camera to simulate human flesh, hair, moles,
to show you when you're exposed to UV raised it
turns red and you can see on there.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
It's when I'm driving my flesh camera, right.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
When you're driving your flesh camera. EI, they are like veins. Anyway,
It's super creepy. But it also lets people know that
you can still get sunburned in the car, Okay, and
not just necessarily like the arm that you're hanging out
the window.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah, I've seen that.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
I've seen that. But yeah, so apparently seventy percent of
Australians think that they're protected from the sun while they're inside.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
Of a car.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
That's not true. Yeah. So anyway, they also this company,
my Car, Tire and Auto, they have like sun spot
stickers at any other locations across Australia that will change
color when exposed to UV raised. You put it in
the car and it'll be like, hello, you're getting burned.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
It's like a mood ring, but for skin cancer. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
So anyway, I think it's a great cause, but it's
so ridiculous and it's so disgusting and it made me
kind of like have to like.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Choke down the bile.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
The hair on the headrest.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Is it's something and it's just flesh.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Car.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
That's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
I'll give you that, Elizabeth. I got one for you,
and it involves no hair that I'm aware of.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
It's a shame.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah. But you remember that song. I thought the law
and the law.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Won the original and then the clash cover.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Sure take them both, all right? Well, that original and
the Clash cover they inspired today's story.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Oh, breaking rocks in the hot sun.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Yeah, only in this case, the law doesn't always win.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Oh I like that.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free
and one hundred percent what Elizabeth ridiculous? Ridiculous Elizabeth ar Today,

(06:29):
I want to tell you a story about gold Fever. No,
for some context, you've seen the Humphrey Bogart movie The
Treasure of Sierra Madre.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yes, badges, we don't need a stinking badges.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yes, these days, that movie is remembered mostly for the lines.
The full lines is badges. We ain't got no badges.
We don't need no badges. I don't have to show
you any stinking badges. Yeah. Now, the reason I bring
up this movie is because of how Bogart's character, Fred C. Dobbs,
is like the embodiment of gold Fever.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
It's a great movie, by the way.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Totally absolutely Houston wins the Oscar for it and now
chasing after Mexican gold. Bogart's character is absolutely driven by
greed for gold, right, and he literally goes mad for it. Now.
By the way, I also love Bogart's character often speaks
in the third person, like he says, quote, you know
what's good for you. You don't muck you around with
fred C. Dobbs. Oh boy, I think I'm gonna start

(07:23):
doing that just to dress.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Please don't. That's something that I don't. I usually don't
like it, but then sometimes I find myself doing it.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
That's what I was gonna say, is I think it'd
actually be more fun if you did it. If you're
like you think you can keep Elizabeth se Dutton out
of this dog.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Parking me away? Yeah, I like it anyway that when
people say to me, like, you know, if someone's named
Kevin and say, well, you know, don't mess with Kevin,
and I'm just always like, well tell him when you
see him that I don't care like you have you

(07:58):
talked to Kevin?

Speaker 2 (08:00):
I think you're right. There are limitations on how it
can be funny, but when done well.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
When done well, and me a Humphrey Bogart can pull it.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Off totally well. He's also just like manic about it.
So it really that's what always helps. It kind of
sells that you get both it's funny and it's also
like ooh, stay away from this fella now. Anyway, This
is what I want to talk to you about today.
Elizabeth gold fever, specifically, how gold can make humans go mad.
And it doesn't matter if they're like gold treasure hunters
or even say the FBI, no one is immune from

(08:31):
the siren call of that soft, lustrous metal. Now, second question, Elizabeth,
were you a girl in California? Now? Who ever read
about sunken Spanish treasure ships? Oh?

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, totally right.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
I felt like you, yeah, You've never mentioned it to me,
but it felt like.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
This sunken Spanish treasure ship seems like more of a
Florida kind of tail. Although you know they're all that.
I have a book about shipwrecks off the coast gut
shut up to California, of course you do. And you
know hidden gold, uh huh, my nephew, and I inspected
that for a while. We're trying to figure out like

(09:08):
the day trips to.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Totally to go digging, to go find this some gold,
a lot of it. Now. Obviously, as you well know,
there were many many Spanish galleons that sailed along the
California coast. Typically they go down to Acopuco and from
there they'd sail across the Pacific to Manila and the
Philippines and naturally, all this California and Mexican gold on
those galleons. It became you know, it was coveted by

(09:29):
the British privateers primarily, which is how Sir Francis Drake
ends up sailing around San Francisco the coastline. He was
hunting for Spanish gold. Now, back in the late fifteen hundreds,
the Spanish Armada and the British privateers they played this
dangerous high seas games of catch me if you can,
and that game led to a handful of Spanish galleons
wrecking at sea. Typically their gold cargo went down to

(09:52):
the briny deep. But if you really want to talk
wrecked Spanish treasure, you're totally correct. The spot to consider
is the Caribbean. Yeah, far more ships went down there,
these huge Spanish treasure ships. Oh yeah, than what's sunk
on the Pacific coast.

Speaker 3 (10:09):
It actually it runs all the way up to like
gold Rush gold transportation, and anytime you get like from
Monitory north, the coastline gets particularly.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Rocket so like front currents.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
From there up to you know, above San Francisco is
a bad, bad stretch, and so there would be a
lot of boats that were just carrying you know, people,
but also all this like cargo and much of it
gold that would go down along the coast and it's
never recovered. None of the stuff's ever recovered.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
You've told us tales of ships getting run into danger
on the Pacific coast. Sure, yeah, No, I got some numbers,
because I know you like numbers. According to maps of
the sunken treasure ships, there were six hundred and eighty
one vessels that were sunk between fourteen ninety two and
eighteen ninety eight in the Caribbean.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Well, think about too. We talked about pirates the other
day and with Mary Carlton and the amount of gold
that they were lifting off of other ships. It was,
you know, they had the shipwrecks. They're working in much
larger volume totally.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
I mean over here, it's like there's like four or
five off the Caliburny coast. Where was there there's six
hundred and eighty one. Now according to modern Spanish estimate,
it's only twenty three percent of that six hundred and
eighty one have been found and explored. Really, that leaves
five hundred and twenty four ships left to be discovered.
Does Let's go Yeah, it's a lot of gold sitting
there on the floor of the Caribbean. Now, this is
also why salvaging for sunken treasure in the Caribbean is

(11:33):
still to this day big business. And if you're looking
for them, if you will, you know, if you're curious,
I can tell you where they are. There's off the
coast of Cuba. You got about two hundred and forty
nine ships off the coast of America, which is primarily
the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas
which is used to be called Spanish Florida. That whole stretch. Yeah,
there's one hundred and fifty three ships just wrecked. Now

(11:57):
as an example of an as a lucrative ship right
in the Caribbean that you might try to find, there
was this one treasure ship. It was so loaded down
with gold it was literally the nickname for the ship,
it was called the Ship of Gold.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
Very creative, right.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
The official name for the ship was the SS Central America,
but everyone called it the Ship of Gold because it
had one of the largest like just bulk of masses
of gold ever ship. But when this ship sailed, as
you pointed out. This was around the time of the
California gold rush, so in the eighteen fifties, the ship
of gold, it wasn't a Spanish galleon like you'd see

(12:31):
in an old pirate movie. It was a modern ship
for its time. It was a sidewheel paddle boat steamer.
Oh right, two eighty feet in length, so it was
like a big boat, right, it wasn't like a river
paddle boat. Now, this also wasn't Spanish. It was an
American ship operated by the US Males Steamship Company out
of New York, the SS Central America. It regularly would

(12:53):
steam between Central America and the East coast of the
United States.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
It was apparently those giant paddle steamers was pretty common totally.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
That was like the way it was like, you know,
the boat of the day. Now, on its final cruise,
the SS Central America was steaming from Nicaragua up to
New York with a scheduled stop in Havana. And now
if you check the date of when this ship wrecked,
it was eighteen fifty seven, which means, as I said,
gold Mania still attracting dreamers and desperate hopefuls to the
gold country in California had it not ended yet. Yeah,

(13:22):
that date also means there was no transcontinental railroad yet.
So if you wanted to transport California gold to the
banks back in New York, you had to travel south,
then go over to Nicaragua. Then the California gold would
get carried overland to the Caribbean side of the Isthmus,
where it was then loaded onto fresh ships and sent north.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
Now inside the SS Central America, they had this eye
popping amount of California gold headed to the New York banks.
They were also five hundred and ninety two passengers and
crew aboard the ship. The thing was loaded down, and
among that number, of course, there were several hundred gold
miners who'd come from the California goldfields, several hundred, all
of them their own loads of that yellow metal they'd

(14:02):
cut out of the hills. Yeah, so they're carrying it
on their person, right, They've secreted away in like a
leather pouches, money belts.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
But so many leather pouches you would.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Have gone nuts. Just snacks on bags on sacks. Obviously,
as I said, they're secreting it away, right, But on
top of what they're carrying on their person. There's also
a load of gold bars and coins, all crammed into
lock boxes headed to the New York Banks. So if
we're just concentrating on the gold bars and the coins,
I'm talking tons of gold. There was roughly nine point

(14:32):
one tons of gold loaded onto the ship in specie,
so that gold was listed at forty million dollars in
eighteen fifty seven prices. I did the conversion for you, Elizabeth,
Thank you, I know you love it. That same forty
million dollars in gold in eighteen fifty seven would be
worth about one point five billion dollars today.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
Good night, boh.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
It's nicknamed the Ship of Gold.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
That yeah, okay, you've earned it.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah. But also they had all the gold that's on
those miners, the high hundreds of miners. We'll come back
to that point to put a pin in that, Elizabeth,
and after these messages we will get.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
Back to more gold duly pinned, and we're back.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Okay, you're ready for more of the Ship of Gold,
all right, because I've got a surprise for you. There's trouble. Now.
The trouble for the ship was that September is the
peak of Hurricane season in the Atlantic, as you well know.
And it was basically downright foolhardy to attempt to make
the run north from Nicaragua to New York in the summer.
But back then they didn't have radar, they didn't have
weather reports, so they just had to chance it, and

(15:51):
chance it they did. Sister. However, luck was not on
their side because on September ninth, eighteen fifty seven, the
SS Central America gets caught in a hurricane around It's
only a category two, beauty. It wasn't like a crazy
there's still some stuff. Yeah, it's not a ship killer
per se. But it got the job done, yea. It
was battling above its way.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
I wouldn't want to be out there in the.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
What they recorded were one hundred and five mile an
hour winds.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
All right, soon enough the crew is fighting for the
life of the ship. Right. The paddle wheel is still going,
so they're not like they have sales. They have a
few sales down, yeah, but they pulled all the sales
in and they got one hundred.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
And five miles an hour.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, it's rough. And they battled the sea for two
days and then on September eleventh, the paddle wheel breaks.
That pretty much spells doom for the ship. And then
the next day, on September twelfth, eighteen fifty seven, Ship
of Gold goes Blue Blue Blue Group sinks in the Caribbean.
One hundred and fifty three passengers get saved from the
tempest Toss series. The estimated thirty thousand pounds of gold

(16:49):
that were collectively aboard the ship sank down to Davy
Jones's locker. Yeah. If you calculate all of that gold,
that includes what's in the lock boxes, what's on the miners,
it would come to about two point four billion in
today's dollars, all sitting in the bottom of the Caribbean.
Man Elizabeth. That was so much gold that in eighteen
fifty seven there was an economic panic in the United States. Sure,

(17:12):
and and the damage wasn't limited to America. The Panic
of eighteen fifty seven was the first international globe spanning
financial crisis. The Panic of eighteen fifty seven was the
og oh, no, we're all going to get hit by this,
right anyway?

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Well, yeah, because I mean you think of that quantity
of gold, and then also you've got the miners, and
I think that many of them weren't just like minor
forty nine ers in dirty not.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
By that point, Yeah, not eighteen fifty.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
They're the ones who had sent guys up and they
have the and so you don't know what they have
wired back yes East as promisory noes, and now they
have to deliver.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yep, you got banks operating on money that's not coming in.
They've cash checks that there's no money to back. So
now back the ship of gold sitting there at the
bottom of the Caribbean. It's lost where no one is certain,
where it's low cad and there it remains for one
hundred and thirty one years, all that gold just sitting
there in some shipwreck. Yeah, and of course you know
what this means. If he's sitting in some shipwreck for

(18:10):
one hundred and thirty one years, people hunted for that
loss go down in the Caribbean. I don't know exactly.
I couldn't tell you. It was like in I No,
like in the middle of the bathtub and it spins
around intb you know they call the gribby in the bathtub,
like in the middle of the bathtub. Right. So eventually
after one hundred and thirty one years of people hunting
for this lost gold going. I think it's over here.

(18:32):
I don't know does Elizabeth have the courts and I
know Zaren doesn't have him. So eventually there's this one cat,
Tommy Gregory Thompson. He joins the hunt.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Tommy Thompson.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Tommy Thompson, Yeah, bad parents. He joins the hunt for
the lost gold Old Tommy Thompson. He wasn't your typical
treasure hunter, Elizabeth. He was a man in love with
the sea. He was interested in deep sea study of
the oceans. He's a scientist, right, But it's always it's
always been difficult. It's still difficult, and it's been difficult
for you know, for e which is for a scientist
who just wants to do something like study the sea's currents.

(19:04):
To raise money, it's always been difficult to raise money
for scientific research, but especially if you're a very specific interest.
So he found a workaround. A friend of us told
him he ought to hunt for treasure ships lost in
the Spanish main because that would attract investors. Oh yeah, right,
And so basically investors have always been the same too.
They're like, I don't care about all that science stuff

(19:24):
you talk gold.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah, they're like, you're confusing me with the big words
gold good.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Exactly gold mine. So anyway, he does exactly that. He starts,
you know, looking for treasure ships. He researches sunken treasure
ships and then, as I said, there's a ton of them,
so he takes them a while. He comes up with
a list of potential ones to search for ones he
thinks he can like triangulate and figure out where they
may be lying on the ocean floor. And he picks
the ship of gold because of that insane amount of

(19:50):
great now. Once he makes this decision to switch it
up into being like a goldfinding scientist, this changes everything.
Now he's got two hundred and fifty investors all signing
up to back his play. Before he couldn't get one.
Now he's gonna battle them away with a stick. One
of them was Harry John. He was an heir to
the Miller Brewing Company fortune. He's like, I'm gonna take
granddaddy's money and put it into final His money attracts

(20:14):
more money because when people hear that the Miller fill
fortunes in this, oh that's good money. So then now
he's got so many investors involved, Thompson forms a salvage
company and old Tommy Thompson begins this hunt for the
lost ship of gold. And since he was into science
and math and the like, he uses math to chart
the currents. He uses submersible vehicles to investigate the ocean's deep,
the undisturbed seafloor. Eventually he gets lucky. On September eleventh,

(20:38):
nineteen eighty eight, one hundred and thirty one years to
the day after the ship went down, he and his
crew discover the sunken ship of gold, or at least
what remained of it after the hurricane. Sure Now, using
a remote operated submersible, Tommy Thompson is able to recover
and estimated one hundred and fifty million dollars of the
lost gold. This just sprinkled, you know, across the bottom

(20:59):
and just one of the gold and gets that he recovered.
It weighed eighty.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Pounds eighty pounds of gold.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
He sold that gold and get for eight million dollars.
That's in nineteen eighties prices. Now that inge was a
record find at the time. It was officially the single
most valuable chunk of currency in the whole world. Yeah. Now,
as a California corn dealer, This guy named Dwight Many.
He buys up the bulk of the recovered gold right
and estimated ninety three percent of the treasure. He called

(21:27):
what he bought the greatest treasure in American history because
it was it was a bit an insane amount and
this record setting treasure. It drives Old Tommy Thompson mad
with gold fever because, just like Fred C. Dobbs for
his next magical trick, he tries to stiff his investors.
He's like, I didn't see them on the boat the
day we found all that gold. They can kick rocks,

(21:49):
so naturally this stance leads to lawsuits and threats that
they'd get their portion of the gold, and after many
court fights, finally in nineteen ninety six, eight years after
the find, the investors are given a legal claimed ninety
two percent of the goldfind and Old Tommy Thompson still
didn't comply. He's like, to hell with a court order.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
Yes that's what we're finding, Like, what does it matter?

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Totally until in two thousand and five, nine years later,
he gets sued again by his investors, still trying to
get their hands on that gold. And then in two
thousand and six, he's also sued by the crew of
the salvage ship. Who I guess he'd also backtracked on
what he promised them. Yeah, none of this matters to
old Tommy Thompson. In two thousand and nine, folks discovered
that Thompson has moved overseas and he has put what

(22:31):
he has left of the money, at least five million
dollars of it, into an offshore account in the Cook Islands,
where no one can get their hands on it, at
least not legally can break in. You can grab it.
But in twenty twelve, twenty four years after the original find,
a federal judge ordered that Tommy Thompson hand over the
gold coins he'd secreted away. In true to form, he

(22:52):
ignored that court order too.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
He's what you're gonna do.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, so old Tommy Thompson. He dropped out of the
picture by at this point he disappeared overseas with his money.
Remember the last time he saw Tommy Thompson. It was
so for the next three years, the US Marshalls start
hunting him down. We'll find if he ever touches like
the US Virgin Islands. We got it. He gets you.
So finally, twenty fifteen, the US Marshals they do discover
where Tommy Thompson is hiding out with his girlfriend and

(23:16):
former assistant, Allison aunt Kierre. And get this, Elizabeth, he
made the profound mistake of hiding in Florida, and that's
where he that's where he gets caught, arrested and extradited.
Is that he gets brought back to Ohio to appear
before the judge who had originally, you know, given him
the orders to turn over the gold. And also now

(23:36):
he sent back to face his angry investors and former crew.
By that point in twenty fifteen, the treasure Hunter he's
now sixty two years old and no less stubborn because
he still refuses to turn over the gold. He claimed
that he used an old coin press from the San
Francisco meant that he had purchased to press gold coins
and that they were all now his. And then in
two thousand and nine he'd handed that gold, all the

(23:59):
gold coins, about five hundred of them, over to a
trustee of his and believe, but now he had no
idea where the gold or that trustee was, so like
take it up with him, man, So he pleads guilty
for failing to appear at court back in twenty twelve,
and that's it. That's all. He's like, that's all you
can get out of me. And the judge's like, oh yeah,
watch this because he was pissed that the treasure hunter
would be hand over the gold. So the judge orders

(24:20):
Tommy Thompson to be sent to prison for contemptive court. Yeah,
he gets a two year sentence for contemptive court. Thompson's
ordered he has to assist with the recovery of the gold.
Old Tommy Thompson still mule stubborn. He's like, you don't
muck you around with Tommy G. Thompson. He's going fuck
full fred Ze Dobson at this point. So meanwhile, a
second federal judge gets involved. He also orders Tommy Thompson

(24:42):
to hand over the gold. He charges him one thousand
dollars a day for every day he doesn't comply with
his order. Oh guess what. Still didn't change Tommy Thompson.
He's like, you're gonna learn, Tommy G. Thompson ain't no
punk son. So he refuses a second federal judge's orders.
Then he just sits there in federal prison. Meanwhile he's
racking up fines to the tune of one point seven

(25:05):
million dollars. Now did he at this point do anything, Yes,
he did. He files petitions for his release because under
a federal law, an uncooperative witness can really only be
held in prison for contemptive court for about eighteen months.
So he's like eighteen months supposed to be free. So
he files a contempt of appeal of contempt order. I mean,

(25:25):
this is what the law says. The judge is like, what,
I can't hear you from your prison cell. So he's like,
I can be stubborn too. So now the federal judge
rules that the law is not about contempt of court
because that doesn't apply to Tommy Thompson because it was
due to his case being based on quote, objects of
economic value or is the judge wrote in his ruling,
quote the utility of mister Thompson's assets is evidence is

(25:47):
almost beside the point. It is the economic value of
the treasure that the court seeks. He puts in his order.
We want the goal to go right, you see, Elizabeth
the judge, well everybody, he's starting to get get the
gold fever. So Finally, in twenty eighteen, thirty years after
the original fine, Tommy Thompson appears ready to relent. He

(26:07):
agrees to hand over the five hunderd gold coins, but
then he backtracks. He's like, right, I forgot I don't
know how to get hold of the trustees. So you
go find him. You can get the gold out. Can
I get out of jail? Now They're like, I don't know, bro,
So he continues to sit there in federal present, in
contempt of court, in legal deadlock, refusing to hand over
the gold. You know, days stretched a weeks, weeks stretched

(26:28):
to months, months turn into years. I mean that's basically
what you call being stubborn as a burnette.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
Definitely stubborn as a burnette.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
I as a kid, you know, I would have admired
his result. I as an adult respected Like, I get it.
I'd like to be that difficult too, now, my man,
he's ready to fight the law and wait him out
right for more than a decade, and finally, Elizabeth this year,
after more than a decade, because he was first locked
up in twenty fifteen, Tommy Thompson, now seventy three years old,

(26:58):
was finally released on federal prison. On March twelfth of
this year, The New York Times reported that quote, a
former scientist turned treasure hunter was a released from prison
last week after serving his ten year sentence for contempt
of court for refusing to share the location of missing
gold coins. Now, it technically wasn't his ten year sentence.
It was his two year sentence, and it stretched to

(27:19):
ten years. Anyway, his refusal it cost him a decade
of his own his life as his freeing right. But
it didn't matter to him. He's like, I'm holding onto
that gold. He traded ten years for one hundred gold coins.
I mean, he was like, you know, I don't remember
seeing the government on that boat when I found all
the gold. So now, when asked for comment, the Feds

(27:40):
had nothing to say to the New York Times. The
judge didn't want to talk about it. His former investors
also declined to comment. They're all like upset that they
did not get their hands on the precious gold, right
because you know, they lost. So in this case, a
man stubborn with gold fever won out, which is not
what you ever expected. Oh no, okay, now that I
got that one out of the way, Elizabeth, let's take

(28:00):
a little break and I'll be back with another tale
of gold fever. But first some messages and then more gold,
more gold fer We're back, Elizabeth. Hi, you're ready for

(28:29):
another tale of gold fever, driving both men and feds
alike crazy. Yes, so that's sweet, sweet, soft, lustrous metal.
I'm telling you, I don't know why people go nuts. Word.
I know, because it's valuable, But it's different though they
can't see people go diamond crazy as often.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
Well, I mean, yeah, like people want to be dripping
in diamonds.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
I guess you're right, just like people want.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
To put gold gold decorations all over their housing.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
I guess people do also go crazy for gemstones of
all kinds. You don't go crazy for south fire. So
maybe it is just the wealth, but seems particularly also,
but it's the.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Glittery quality of the light. Yeah, there's something very pleasing.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
It's also very soft to the touch, even nice silver.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
There's a very pleasing to metallics and two gems and.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, conducts electricity. I mean, it's just fantastic that. So
this next story is centered on gold that was lost
during the Civil War. Okay, as we've discussed this gold fight,
I'll tell you that in a second paper. Money was
a big problem in the Civil War. Right, we've discussed
how it estimated one third, about fifty percent of US
currency was counterfeit.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yeah, and that's the US currency because then you have
the garbage that they were making down.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
The Confederate dollars. Yeah, it was it just backed on
like a really I don't know so well call it
a promise. Yes. Now, basically what this meant for people
was if you wanted currency that folks could trust, you
used either silver or gold coins. Right in the war years.
This is true for both the Confederacy and the Union.
All you're right, the Confederacy have Confederacy script and the

(30:01):
Union had their greenbacks. That was mostly just like for
farmers and people that we are going to be doing
local trade, you know, the local banks printed the money
that was then you know, backed by silver, backed by gold.
So what people really wanted was gold or silver if
you're going to be like selling them a cannon, which
is what armies were buying. Right, So in the war
years they these two like warring armies Confederacy in the Union.

(30:23):
They had to ship gold through active battlefields, which which
naturally led to crime because see that gold shipments were
regularly targeted for raids and theft on both sides, and
then also by people who were not even in the fight.
So there's this local legend of a Civil War era
lost gold in this place called Dnse run in Pennsylvania.

(30:44):
It's somewhat convoluted story, obscured by time, but according to
north Central pa dot Com, the story goes the year
is eighteen sixty three, in the days of the Battle
of Gettysburg to sent to you know, situate you in
the Civil War. So this detachment of Union soldiers is
tasked with transporting a wagon load of gold bars headed

(31:05):
to Washington, d c. To pay for the war effort.
The Union troops, they take a secret path through northern
Pennsylvania to avoid the Gettysburg battlefield and the bands of
Confederate soldiers that are raiding through southern Pennsylvania. Now, this
detachment of Union soldiers is led by a man named
Lieutenant James Castleton, Right, So you got an officer leading
these guys, but there's another man who's really leading them

(31:26):
who's key to the story. This man named Connors, who
is either an army scout or a local civilian guide.
You hear both anyway, he's leading the gold wagon through
the Pennsylvania woods right now. The trek, it's arduous men.
They get felled by injuries. Others are brought low by
like dysentery on bad water and that kind of stuff.
And so eventually you get it down to it there's

(31:48):
just a few men, like they're just losing men until
it's just like three four of them right starting the
whole wagon of gold. And now these men they determine
like they can't make it to Washington. There's no way
they're getting all the way across pennsylvani And so rather
than let the Confederates find them and steal the gold,
they choose to bury it. And so they dig deep
into the earth. The army scout, the civilian guide, whichever

(32:10):
he was, Connor's, he's leading the dig because the Lieutenant
Castleton has fallen by the wayside at this point. So
Connors is the only one of these soldiers who makes
it out of these deep dark Pennsylvania woods, the only
one who knows where the gold is buried.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
No one else, no.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
One else survives. He walks into a town nearby called
lock Haven, like like a key in a lock lock haven.
He's exhausted, barely clinging to life. He stays there in
lock haven to recover, recuperate. You get the idea. He
gets better. He does recuperate. Connor starts drinking with the locals,
and when he's good and drunk, he's a chatty type
and he often starts bragging about burying a shipment of

(32:48):
gold secreted away from the Confederates. He's like, it's riding
them woods. You guys got the off beyonder. Eventually, Connors
is brought before the Union Army when they're like, he's
still in town, so they they send out a detachment
they grab and they bring him back to headquarters and
he's asked to account for the gold, like or you bury,
I draw an X on the map so we can
go get it. And he's like, oh, yeah, I kind

(33:09):
of remember was over Maybe it was in these mountain range,
or maybe it's in this valley. Maybe he's down in
a holler. He he the whole thing is suspicious as hell,
because remember he's the only one who emerged from the woods. Yeah,
did the other soldiers really get sick.

Speaker 3 (33:22):
And die or exactly?

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, we have like yeah, exactly, So the Union Army
commanders they start thinking like something's up. And also Connors
is constantly telling different stories when he's questioned, so they're like,
he's a lot like old Tommy Thompson, Right, He's like
real stubborn about ye on the gold.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
So a long story short, no one ever learns the
truth of where he buried the gold. He never puts
an X on the map. Eventually, some of Connor's old
drinking partners in town, back in lock Haven, they become
convinced that they could find it based on what he'd
told them, so they go out looking for it, but
when they return to town, they always come back empty handed.
Trymped after attempt, doesn't matter. Nobody finds it, and thus

(34:03):
the gold has remained lost ever since, way back then
to this day. Yeah, believed to be somewhere in those
deep and dark Pennsylvania woods. Over time, this story becomes
a fable which then grows into a legend of lost gold,
and ever since then, as I said, treasure hunters have
attempted to recover it. And we're talking at this point
generations and generations of like hopeful men and women tramping

(34:25):
into those same thick woods, the woods that gave the
state its name, and these are some of the thickest,
least populated woods in Pennsylvania. Right, It's basically it's like Transylvania,
like a deep dark.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
I'm like some of those guys. I go out there
and like the bud of the drinking buddies. Yeah, and
if if I found it, I would come back out
saying I didn't find it, not there, and then to
slowly keep secreting it out you have exactly, and then
let them go dig around find that.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Always think I would trust you with my So at
this point, after all these people are looking for it
and allegedly not find.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
It there it is see enter.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
A father and son duo of treasure hunters, Dennis and
Kem Parata. Okay, now together they founded a treasure hunting
company called Finders Keepers, which is a fun name for
a treasure hunting company.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Is that the law on it I did have. I
mean I was wondering about when you were talking about
the shipwrecks, like if the if the ship had owned
everything on it. Let's say that they weren't just transporting
but it was a company, yes, that was transporting their
own gold, and it went down in the eighteen hundreds
and the company still exists today. Sure do they have

(35:42):
ownerships of it?

Speaker 2 (35:43):
The Spanish have tried to lay claim to their gold
numerous times. Yeah, it's like, no, that was even though
we're a different government, that's still Spanish gold. Yeah, then
you fils to ask yourself, what about say in South
America where the gold was mined from, and well, that's
in some ways stolen.

Speaker 3 (35:57):
When they say like there's that, that's saying like if
you want to see all the majesty of all the
Mayan gold, go to a church in Spain.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, or yeah, exactly, you can visit their gold in
Italy and Spain.

Speaker 5 (36:12):
Exact.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
At this point, we have the finders keepers, which is
the rule of salvage is you know, and it's it's
it's murky, but you know, it's kind of like the
possession is nine tenths the law kind of one of
those the people who can make claims, and they often
will win in court if they make a claim. But
there's often the cases if you find it and there
are no immediate connections or like you know, outstanding proof

(36:35):
that it did belong to somebody, it's yours finders keepers.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Right, so in this case it would have been government gold,
US government gold. Sure, so the US government sticky would
have a would be able to make a claim.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah, they're like, oh, I believe I will.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
But also, I mean, can we just talk for a
second about what a great gig for a family. You
get to spend time together in the woods, and if
you get lucky, you recover a life changing fortune and gold.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
I mean that's when you were saying, like this father's
son they start a business and it's treasure hunters, Like
I would love to have it, father daughter, mother daughter
treasure company.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah. You guys, just like a hike, enjoy nature, and
then if you get really good at your job, you
find a life changing No, I don't get that anyway.
After years of looking this father and son duo they
triangulate their hunt for the Civil War gold shipment, and
in twenty eighteen they focus on this one section of
woods in a thickly forested valley called Dense Run. It's

(37:36):
about one hundred and ten miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Now this father and son do they believe that they
had found the lost Civil War era gold shipment. They're
like convinced of it, but they have not laid their
eyes on it. It's still buried deep, right, okay, which
means they're going to need back hose and excavating radar,
all sorts of heavy equipment. You called it, right, That.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Would be super fun to have all that equipment, to
have that company.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Kind of have a thing about finding all sorts of
new proquestion.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah, but I mean there's there's this show, this British
Showtime team, and they always use, oh yeah, you've showed
me theology show the ground penetrating radar to find and
it's awesome, like all the stuff we don't know about.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
Like I like when they find the mosaic floors, that's
oh yeah, okay. So at this point, now that they've
triangulated and they're fairly certain they know where the gold
is and they're ready to bring in heavy equipment, what
do the father and son do fight Did they approach
a team of investors like old Tommy Thompson did, or
perhaps do they hire locals and hand out shovels with
the promise of a cut for every person that helps

(38:40):
them dig up the forest? Great questions, Wliza kind of
full of questions. They did none of those things. Instead
they went to the FBI. Oh, which, if you asked me,
it was a huge mistake, I would say. So.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
I thought that they were like, oh, we're going to
do it ourselves. And then dad has a heart attack
and then the son like breaks his arm with trying
to dig.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
A shovel, falls off a boulder and breaks his arm.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
And then they both just like lay there writhing.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
No, because it's the FBI. They go to the FBI because,
like you know, as I said earlier, it's allegedly Union goal,
so it belongs to the United.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
States government, to the actual owner.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Yes, honey, well there they know they're going to lose
on salvage claims because the government does have the paperwork, right,
or so they believe in the fog of war, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Know when the government up yours like I'm taking this
for me.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Well, I also find it funny because they're named their
company finders keepers, and the rest of that rhyme goes
finders keepers, losers weepers. In this case, the government should
have been the loser.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
And if it was so important to them, gather up
some of you, all your little workermen and go out
there and find it.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah, Army Corps of engineers, helldo Nope, Instead if they
go running to the FBI. All right, But in this
pair of patriots, when they decided to do the right
and noble thing and tell the government what they'd found
it's lost gold shipment, they say, all we're looking for
is a finder's fee. We don't want to keep it,
we just want like a cut, right, So they tell you.
They're like, we'll tell you FBI where the gold is

(40:13):
if you guys give us a finder's fee. The FBI
apparently was like deal, and they agreed to the deal.
And then the father and son duo did tell the
FBI where to look for the lost goal. And I
guess the FBI believe them, because the government records show
that an agent from the FBI's Art Crime team approached
Wells Fargo about the alleged lost shipment and was like, hey,
do you guys have any records of a gold shipman

(40:33):
the archives. Wells Fargo's like, we got deep archives, let
me go check. They're like, our archives don't stretch back
that far. I mean, basically, the records from the Civil
War period were incomplete. So the bank did say that
is a high likelihood that they ship the gold in one
of their stage coaches. They're like, we do we get
a cut that sounds like something we do. Yeah, that
totally sounds like US. So it's so us. So without

(40:57):
confirmation from the bank, the FBI did some looking on
their own. The contract with this company called enviro Scan, right,
and they tell Viral Scan to go search the woods
and scan the ground with your ground penetrating radar, and
the father and son treasur runters are like, yeah, here's
the spot, you know, and then the company locates what
appears to be a nine ton metallic mass buried in

(41:18):
the woods right on the spot. It has also, by
the way, all the tailtale signs of a deposit of gold,
because the different metals make different sounds when when you
use like, you know, your detector. So I'm sure with
ground penetrating radar it's the same thing.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
Should be a crashed alien spaceships point.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
But at this point the FBI is like, Eureka, we
have found it, and they get all geeked up. Now, Elizabeth,
you and I often repeat the advice on this show
don't lie to the fp correct, but we never really
ever say, show the FBI all your work, right, No, No,
And then we also don't ever really get into like
when it comes to gold, anyone can catch a case
of gold fever, which is what seems to have happened here.

(41:59):
Because guess what happens next, Elizabeth, I couldn't even begin
to No, don't guess, Elizabeth. Rather than answer what happens next,
I'd like you to close your eyes. I'd like you
to picture it. It's March fourteenth, twenty eighteen, just after
five am, deep in the woods of Pennsylvania in a

(42:22):
valley called Dense Run, and you, Elizabeth, are hiking on
a mountainside in Pennsylvania's Elk Country. Because you are a
seventy three year old man who keeps an impressive collection
of elk antlers back home. Your steps are quick since
you are geeked to collect some quote brown gold. That's
what you call the freshly dropped rack of elk antlers.

(42:42):
And you know well that March is the best time
of the year to collect the antlers at the elk
knock free from their heads with the help of a
tree trunk or a well placed boulder. At the moment,
you and your hunting guide a cat named Eric McCarthy,
are trekking through the dense woods as the morning birds
sing in the tree high above you. You both have
been up since four am, ever eager to find antlers.

(43:05):
Your eyes scan the forest floor. A snow squall has passed,
leaving behind a world covered in soft white snow. There's
a light dusting of snow that covers the entire ground,
the rocks, the boulders, the fallen logs, and elk antlers.
You and your hunting guide separate to better check the
mountain side for racks of elk antlers. As you continue

(43:26):
your progress, your footfalls crunch the wintertime leaves and the
springtime snow. And then you hear something you don't expect.
It's not the low guttural call of an elk Nope. Instead,
it's something you recognize from humanity. It's the sound of
heavy industrials construction equipment. You certainly never expected to hear that,

(43:46):
not out where you are deep in the woods. But
then you remember that the day before, you and your
hunting guide and Karthy ran into a group of FBI
agents out here in the forest. That was odd enough
on its own, and it was extra odd that the
FBI agents shewed you away from where they were working
in the woods. You think to yourself, now the sounds

(44:07):
of instruction equip it must be the FEDS. But why
what could they possibly be looking for. It's not like
they're on the hunt for brown gold. You hike over
closer to the source of the noise of heavy machinery.
You crest a ridge, but the woods are.

Speaker 5 (44:22):
Too thick to see anything clearly. However, the noise, that's
the clanging and banging has grown louder. You also hear
what sounds like metal scraping against the metal. The FBI
guys must be down there somewhere below you in the valley.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
You trek lower. That's when you spot a set of
lights and generating, which suggests whoever is doing the digging
must have been working through the night. Finally, you catch
sight of some of the industrial construction equipment. There's an
excavator next to a skid steer. They're both pushing and
cutting into the earth, going back and forth across the
deep gash and the dark brown soil. It hasn't seen

(45:01):
the surface in a long long time. You scan the
area and you spot some men they are gathered beneath
the canopy, like the kind you'd see with the FBI
creates a mobile command station. You recognize that these must
be the same FBI guys you showed you away yesterday.
I guess they didn't want you or anyone else to
see what they're digging up. Being a good citizen, you

(45:21):
decide to hike back up the mountain and reconnect with
your hunting guys on mccartha. It doesn't take you long
to find him. When you, too reunite, he tells you
he heard and saw the same things you did, but
neither of you wanted to get too close. You decide
it's a good time to take a break lunch before
you resume your hunt for the brown gold of elk antlers.
As you, too fill thermos tops with hot coffee and

(45:44):
chew on sandwiches, you hear a new noise rumbling far
below you. From where you are seated close to the
crest of the mountain, you both spy the source of
the rumbling noise. It's a series of armored trucks. Now
that's truly odd to see in the thick Pennsylvania woods.
The armored trucks are part of a convoy of blacked

(46:05):
out SUVs. This must be some serious operation. You both
noticed that one of the armored trucks is riding low
on the tires, clearly weighed down by a super heavy
low You both wonder aloud what the hell the FBI
guys could be doing and transporting out of the woods.
As you sip your hot coffee and chew on your sandwiches,

(46:25):
you joke, it's probably not Jimmy Hoffa or Bigfoot, but
there must be something equally mysterious. So there you go, Elizabeth.
Without knowing it, you and your hunting guide just became
eyewitnesses to a truly strange, mysterious occurrence in the Pennsylvania Woods.
But you were not the only ones who spotted the
construction equipment or the convoy of blacked out SUVs and

(46:47):
armored trucks. Residents in the area they also reported its shotting,
the excavators, the back hos, the convoy of trucks, including
the armored trucks. The question is what about the Paradas,
the father and son duo who had first found the gold? Yeah,
where were they during this FBI mysterious dig? Another fantastic question,
Elizabeth The original deal with the FBI was that the

(47:10):
Paradas could observe the FBI's two day long dig, because
I mean, what treasure hunter worth the shovel doesn't want
to say that, geeks. Yeah, let's say like a shovel
turn earth, all right, just stand over there. But just
like you and the hunting guide McCarthy, the Paradas were
also told to stay away from the dig by the
FBI guys. They had to wait in their cars, their trucks,

(47:33):
like far from the action, so they couldn't really see
what was happening. Side note, Elizabeth, you and I both
watched that show The Detectors. Love that show, right, what
a great show now. I highly recommend it, and I
know you do too, mostly for the characters, not the plot.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Do you remember how excited the characters were about finding
the Roman gold coins.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
Oh my god, that's the that's it. That's like the
goal that he has, that's all he wants.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
So I bring this up to suggest that in real
life there were these two treasure hunters like the Paradas,
they would deaf want to be right there to see
the gold.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
Yeah, to be dug up, man, I'd want to be
right there to see it dug up right, And I
don't do any of them stuff.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Because even they're not doing the digits, they just want
to see it. Do they want to see what it
finally breaks the surface? Yes, you see it catch sunlight
for the first time in one hundred years.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
And there's gonna be all the cool like what kind
of like uh is it in a box? And there
other papers that are with it totally what's the whole
like a like the scene around it.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
That's you know, it's the history. Oh. Another fun fact.
Over in England back in twenty eighteen, two real life
detectorists took their metal detectors out into the fields looking
for Roman gold. They were elated when their detector started
to whine with the sounds of like a gold find.
They get out their spades and they start digging into
the earth to dig up could be gold and would
you know what they did indeed find golden Roman coins.

(48:56):
Just like the stars of the show The Detectors. These
two real life detectorists ames for Andy Sampson and Paul Adams.
They were quote shouting and jumping around and dancing just
like the stars of the show. Again, so when they
first find the treasure. They're all excited, but then a
friend that they showed they're fine to said, you know,
something's not right with this Roman gold. I don't know
if he was like biting it and bending it or what.

(49:16):
He's like, something's not right. So then they went to
go get the coins confirmed as the real deal, and
they learned that the gold coins they found weren't real.
They were props from That's right the show the Detectorists,
But these two real life detectives are still add it,
so good for them. Keep on Andy and Paul. Anyway,

(49:36):
My point is when the Paradas father and son duo
were barred from observing the FBI's dig and told to
stay in their vehicles far from the dig site, far
enough where they couldn't see what exactly was happening, well,
that made it real hard for the treasure hunters to
believe the news. When the FBI came back to them
and said, sorry, folks, there was no gold there, like
those lying yeah right, Like how can that be? The

(50:00):
scans showed a possible nine.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
Ton golds out there, and I saw all. I saw
the armored cars right now exactly. I saw with my
own eyes their own four eyes.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
So were the machines wrong? That was unlikely, So the
father son treasure hunters, they had to consider. The other
possibility was the FBI lying to them? Yes, did the
FEDS find their golden plan to keep it for themselves? Well,
these are all great and fantastic questions, Elizabeth, And after
these messages, we'll dig into the rest of the story,
get down to the truth what happened in the Pennsylvania wounds.

(50:56):
And Elizabeth, you're you're ready to get to the bottom
of this tail. Yes, all right, So we got to
get back to the FBI. And as I said earlier,
we always caution folks, don't lie to the FBI. Don't Like,
what do you do when you suspect the FBI is
lying to you?

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Then you just fly off the handle? Like I feel
like I'm about you know, it's like, we give a
lot of respect to the government. Let me say, we're
not gonna lie to the FBI because they'll bring all
sorts of down on you. But you know, I am
I've had it with being lied to by the government.
I thought so, and I mean that's happened for decades centuries,

(51:32):
but like right now, yeah, I met, I met my
limits zero.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
We're well past like the cultural curiosity of is Coen
tell pro true or like deep into like is there
any agency that's not lying well?

Speaker 3 (51:44):
And just like this straight up like, oh you know
the sky is pink today, No, it's blue. Stop lying
to me. Everything's fine.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
No, yeah, okay. So remember how father and son duo
treasure hunters, they were told the FBI found no gold
after two days of digging and whatnot. The FBI did
show the parada's a giant hole in the ground, and
the FBI was like, see big asshole, no gold. Sorry, fellas. Now,
on the second day of that dig that's the same
day that you know you were early in the morning

(52:15):
with your elk hunter guide looking for brown gold. Right,
that's when you guys saw the caravan of vehicles like
as you pointed out, armored trucks riding low on their suspension. Now,
the guide McCarthy and the other person his name is Reichel,
they had when they met up for lunch in the woods.
They both watched this caravan, as they said, black SUVs,
and they noted that the one armored truck was like

(52:37):
riding lower than the others, weighted down by something heavy
and as Reichel, that's the you, yeah, he said, Eric
and I both made the comment that one must be loaded,
and the ale Hunter guide McCarthy, he added, with more certainty,
it was loaded to the gills. Now this may all
sound like speculation for.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
Two hunters minded fellas. I've been taking kosamine, ke Androit
and skinkle below ball all the other things they sell
during the.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
I know, I know, I gotta stop watching Rockford files
around you.

Speaker 3 (53:10):
Gonna make fun of my the supplements to keep me sharp.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
Well, McCarthy, it turns out he knew what he was
talking about because he used to drive dump trucks and
he recognized the look of an overloaded truck riding low
on its suspension.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
He's like, I know, I know them dumps.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
No, literally, that's McCarthy, abut it. I know what it
looks like. But if you asked the FBI, they would
insist that there were no armored trucks in the caravan
of official vehicles.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
Gaslighting.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
Yeah, which means that the essence the FBI is calling
McCarthy and Rachel liars or at least fabulous sure being polite? Sure,
So what's the truth? Whip? Smart question? Elizabeth doesn't again
to get it. That requires a long and prolonged court
fight against the FBI.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
So, initially the FBI claimed that they had no records
of files about the dig. They're like, we just didn't
take any files that day or whatever. But in the
Department of Justice they ordered a review of all possible files.
The FBI did is instructed. The bureau comes back with
good news. Oh, we found some files. They were in
the back of the drawer or.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
Whatever THEI with my hockey gear.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
But at this point, the FBI claims that they can't
release them because their records were exempted from any public discourse. Right,
So the father and son duo they have to file
an appeal, and in response, the FBI admits the bureau
did find some records that it could release to the public,
but the process would likely take years. Right. So now
we're like, they're just stalling them, right. So the Paradas

(54:35):
they're like, no, man, we're stubborn, we're treasure hunters. So
they file the Freedom of Information Act requests for information
and documents and records of the dig, and guess what
happens to Elizabeth. Nothing. The FBI stone walls the treasure Hunters.
So in response, in January twenty twenty two, years after
the fine, the father and son treasure Hunters, file a

(54:56):
federal lawsuit against the FBI. This is, like I said,
four years after they originally found it back in twenty eighteen. Sure, so, surprise, surprise,
the FBI is still loath to release any records. So
the Parada's lawyer, Ann Weisman, she said, and I quote
there has been a pattern of behavior by the FBI
that's been very troubling. And she also doubted that the

(55:18):
FBI was quote acting in good faith. Yeah, so I mean,
you ain't wrong Weisman. So months later, in April twenty
twenty two, a federal judge steps into the fray and
they order the FBI to comply with the request for records.
The judge demands that the FBI release over one thousand
pages of their records on the DIG every month until

(55:38):
all of the requested files are made public.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
Release the files.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
No, I'm not a lawyer, Elizabeth, but one thousand pages
a month, sure seems like a lot of records for
the bureau that once claimed that they had zero records.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
It does.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
It seems like, Yeah, I'm just saying anyway. In June
of twenty twenty two, two months after the federal judge's
order for the release of the documents, which by the way,
included seventeen videos that were recorded at the dig site,
the FBI changed its story yet again, and according to
the Associated Press, the FBI initially said it could produce
seventeen relevant video files. Then without explanation, the FBI reduced

(56:15):
that number to four. Now it gets better, because those
four videos weren't the FBI's videos. They were videos the
Puradas had shot and turned over to the FBI. The
FBI was willing to give them back their own videos,
Oh my god, and call that a satisfying action. So
the Paratas luckily had other video evidence of their own,

(56:36):
namely of the FBI recording the VIDs at the dig site.
The Paratas had set up a trail camera and that
the FBI apparently didn't know. And then the trail camera
showed an FBI agent speaking before a video camera as
other FBI agents are milling about in the background. So
I wasn't just like one guy, it was like a
crew of them.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
He's like doing a t hey guys. Basically he was
like inscribed and the dance.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
So, using that video of evidence that the FBI did
indeed record their own videos, the Parada's lawyer and Weisman
filed a newly updated lawsuit, one that cited the trailcam
video is evidence. His wife'sman put it, a still image
from the trail camera quote suggests either the FBI has
falsely claimed to have no other responsive videotapes or the

(57:22):
FBI illegally destroyed responsive videotapes in an effort to circumvent
the fi's disclosure requirements. So she's laying it out. Yeah,
it's one or the other.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Now, there's a friend of the Paradas and a fellow
treasure hunter. This man named Warren Gettler. He's the co
author of a book called Rebel Gold. And in his
book he examines legends of buried Civil War era cashes
of gold silver, all lost in the wilderness. Anyway, Getler
was there with the father son treasure hunter the Paradas
at the FBI's day back in twenty eighteen, so he's

(57:55):
an eyewitness to it all. Yeah. So in twenty twenty two,
as the case is heating up, he told the a
for the FBI, And now say it has no videotape
of the dig, strains credulity and takes this whole affair
to the next level. We have incontrovertible photographic evidence of
them videotaping the dig and interviewing their operational leader at

(58:16):
the site. It raises a lot of serious questions. So
one of those serious questions was rather straightforward, as Getler wondered,
and why would you do a night dig unless you
wanted to remove the gold under cover of darkness?

Speaker 3 (58:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (58:30):
Right, So, as these questions swirl and the Bureau looks
worse and worse, eventually the FBI was forced to release
the videos that the Bureau had recorded. Oh, they had them.
They were always they pretty much at this point in
this story always assume their line.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
Yeah, but I'm just thinking that maybe they destroyed.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
They had not destroyed them. They kept the records. So
in one of the videos, there's an FBI videographer who's
interviewing a member of the FBI's Art Crime Division out
of Philadelphia, and he details why the FBI believes there
is gold in the Pennsylvania Woods. In the video, his face,
by the way, blurred by the FBI to protect his privacy.
Oh thank god, he tells the camera. We've identified through

(59:08):
our investigation a site that we may believe has US property,
which includes a significant sum of base metal which is valuable,
particularly gold maybe silver. So yeah, I notice you benemphasis
on US property. So this slow trickle of released videos
records emboldened the Paradas to keep up their fight with
the FBI because they're winning in court over and over again.

(59:29):
February twenty twenty three, the AP reported updates on the case,
which centered on snow that had fallen. Remember I mentioned
the snow when you were there. Yeah, Well, the FBI's
released photos and records contradicted the weather. You see who
has an FBI image that was released And according to
the FBI's timeline and the labeling, the photo was taken

(59:50):
at the time, it would have been an hour after
the snow was all covering the ground. But yet the image,
as if by magic, the dig site is free of
any snow. So instead there's this huge like moss covered boulder,
and then and then after the storm, that same moss
covered boulder is then magically recovered in snow. So that's
like where did the snow go and come from? When
we know when the storm was and we know there

(01:00:11):
was no snow in between, So this was more evidence
that the FBI was doctoring their documentation.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
So at this point, the prod is claimed the FBI
is lying to them about the gold and the only
reasonable explanations. What Getler suggested, the FBI dug up the
gold under the cover of darkness, use mislabeled photos timelines
to cover up their theft. And then, as Getler put it,
we have compelling evidence a night dig took place and
that the FBI went to some large effort to cover

(01:00:38):
up their night dig. And I'm with them. I'm like,
I think we've got a pretty good evidence. But that's
not all. There's more evidence. The photos aren't the only
discrepancy in the FBI's official story and timeline. For instance,
the FBI released low res, black and white photos which
make it really difficult to establish where anything is or
what anything is doing. They're like, yeah, here's your photos,

(01:00:59):
Like what's up with the like do you take these
with like like a camera from like a like basically
an early nineties backup camera for like a car. There's
also the report that from in viro Scan, the company
the FBI hired to scan for the goal. Their report
gets released, but somehow key pages were missing, like we
lost those in the printer, right what. But the most

(01:01:20):
damning details spring from the fact that the FBI fails
to provide any video from the second day of the dig.
We just didn't film that day that the goal was
ostensibly recovered. Now, the FBAI also failed to release they
had a hand drawn map that the FBI made that
outlines the thirty foot long, twelve foot deep trench that
they dug into the soil, Like, I don't know what

(01:01:40):
happened to that man, it's gone. So that also kind
of suggests the FBI did indeed conduct a really extensive
overnight dig. Meanwhile, the FBI, sticking to their rickety story,
They're like, I don't know what you're talking about. No gold, bro,
do you see any gold? I don't see any gold.
So the Bureau tells the federal judge did the FBI
I had met the requirements of his federal order to

(01:02:02):
release records, and they asked the judge to close the case.
In other words, the FBI was like, we're done here.
Keep it moving. But okay, now the Paradas they aren't
going away. The father told the AP, I will stick
at this until the end, until I know everything that
happened to that gold, how much, where it went to,
who has it now? I gotta know you're not going

(01:02:22):
to beat a treasures.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
No. But at the same time, it's like that the
FBI is doing the whole Well, what are you going
to do about it?

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Yeah, the FBI is equally stubborn, just in a very
different way because they know they don't have to pay
legal costs, so they're like, oh, this one will continue.
So the Paradas insist the truth will come out, but
the question is is will it come out in time
for it to mean anything to Parada or to his son. Now, officially,
the FBI admits it did dig for the gold, but
the bureau also insists it found no gold, or, as

(01:02:52):
the FBI put it, the Bureau quote continues to unequivocally
reject any claims or speculation to the contrary. So that's
the story. They're sticking to it. Yeah, Now, to give
the story a possibility of a happy ending, the Paradas
recently claim they found a second site where there may
be more of the same lost cash of gold. Good
this time father and son, the duo, the treasure Hunters.

(01:03:12):
They reached out to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and
Natural Resources because they own the land, and they asked
them to partner up. They're like, we're done going to
the FEDS. That was a mistake, right and then, but unfortunately,
in March of twenty twenty five, the PA Department of
Conservation and Natural Resources like, please leave us out of this,
and they declined to allow the father son treasure hunters

(01:03:33):
to dig on their land. So, like I said, the
pure stubbornness of a treasure hunter cannot be discounted. So
I mean, has Parata put in a Facebook post recently,
the story's not over yet, it's just getting started. So
Elizabeth will keep an eye on this one for relevant
positive updates. And in the meantime, I'm rooting for you guys. Yeah,

(01:03:54):
so there you go. What's our ridiculous takeaway here, Elizabeth?

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
You know, I stand the lying, but I also think
that maybe sometimes you can lie to them.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
You just don't have to you can lie by omission.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
What's so, fran No, I don't say anything you do that.
I start to think, like, well, what if there really
was no gold? And they're just like, I'm sorry, guys,
We've given you you know, and why would they.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Do all the behavior that they did there was no.

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):
Gold, but like, what's wrong with them with it? Now
they're going to go to this Pennsylvania department. What have
you learned?

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Nothing was salvage laws.

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
No one can get there.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
They can if they go and do all that work
and they pull the gold out, and then the Department
of Conservation and they find out then they can say
and get the gold locals from all the locals who
notice the FBI. The locals would notice them.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
They throw them a couple of gold coins.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
With you doing pirate style, Let everybody what I go
in there.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
First of all, you don't go in and say I'm
going looking for gold. No, you say, I'm going in
to look at this protected bird habitat and make sure
it's the way it's supposed to be. And so keep
real quiet and don't come near.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
That's good since it's Pennsylvania. I would go with oil.
I'm saying I'm digging for oil.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
Well, no, I want some of that. You got to
make them think you're in there with like nothing. People
are so greedy, yeah, and like so just not. They
won't get any financial gain out of it. They'll just
like and you say, look, I'm not disturbing anything. I'm
not looking for a grant to help.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
For rewilding the whole.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
I'm going to just rewild all these wild flowers. And
they're like, okay, whatever, lady. And then you go in
there and I know you're probably gonna need huge excavating materials,
but like figure some cover story out, because they're all
using a cover story. And as I've said, we're at
this point in history where it's like everyone's saying, what
are you gonna do about it? And who cares? Well, okay,

(01:05:42):
guess what, Like I'm gonna do this. But for altruistic things.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Totally, I'm with you so well, thank you for asking.
Please is one, don't lie to the FBI, but two,
don't put yourself in a position where the FBI can
lie to you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
That's yeah, I just don't ever have to interact with
the FBI exactly. You know, I'm always thinking like it
will keep me from saying something I'll regret if I
stay away from the FBI. But like that's just good
life lessons just don't have anything to do with that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Having been raised by a black nationalist, I can tell
you the rule was have nothing to do with the
you in the mood for a talk back washed this
way down? Certainly, can you have favors with one? Oh god, I.

Speaker 3 (01:06:37):
Just listen to the less temptation of very price.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
He had a nickname called Diesel that y'all couldn't figure out.
Diesel refers to sour diesel, which is a strain of
weed that was sought after in the late nineties early odds.
I should know. I used to sell zarin weed and
he was in college at UC Davis.

Speaker 3 (01:07:01):
My name is Peter.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
No way, hell, yes, Peter, Oh my god. I'm not
going to say your full name. I don't know if
you want me to say.

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
Your full name because of what you cool.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Peter is a hell of an artist in the Bay Area,
and if you know him, man respect, shout out Peter.
Oh my goodness, it's so great to hear.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
And you didn't know the diesel thing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
I didn't put that together. I mean, I knew the
satur diesel was a flavor because Peter used to sell
it to me. But I also did not put that together.
I was too busy with the old Diesel jeans and
like like he's Diesel like Shack, I went the wrong way.
I admitted this small world. Dude, how great is Peter?
I cannot believe he's a ridiculous crime Wow. I hope
we get more talkbacks from people.

Speaker 3 (01:07:50):
Hey, if you ever sold drugs to Zeren.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
Talkback, you could go to uh the iHeart app. Download it.
You can leave a talk back and admit that you
sold drugs to be there, or if you'd just like
to hear your voice there, please go do that. We
always enjoy it obviously. Or you can go online at
Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky on an Instagram. On Instagram,

(01:08:15):
we put pictures from the show, so we put a
lot of images to co along with the things that
you see. So if you want to see like what
the goldfine looks like, we'll have images like that. So
we do that with each episode. And also we have
our account Ridiculous Crime Pod pod on YouTube. We have
these cool little animations. Go check that out as well.
Or you can just go to the Ridiculous Crime dot

(01:08:36):
com website where we have a surveys for you to
take and gifts for you to enjoy and merch for
you to like throw on your body or maybe drink
your cafe out of so you got that as well.
And also you can email us if you want. If
you're old school, you can email us at Ridiculous Crime
at gmail dot com. And when you go people pop
hop hop, just make sure to start it out. Dear

(01:08:56):
producer d as always, thank you for listen and we
will catch you next Crah. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by
Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by our
resident shovel salesman Dave Couston, and starring Annali Rucker. That's Judith.

(01:09:19):
Research is by our favorite treasure map makers, Marissa Brown
and Jabbari Davis. Our theme song is by our house band,
The Pirates of the Caribbean Bereze, Suntan Lotion, Kiosk, Thomas
Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe provided by Body five hundred,
guest harn makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers
are the Last of the Honest treasure hunters Ben Bowen,

(01:09:42):
Noel Brown.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Why Say It one More Times Crime?

Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
my Heart Radio Visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.