Treasure hunters who claim the FBI dug up $500 million worth of Civil War gold under cover of darkness and made off are demanding that the agency release records they say prove a nighttime dig was planned.
Father and son Dennis and Kem Parada believe they found a burial site halfway up a mountain in western Pennsylvania loaded with a shipment of 1863 government gold.
They alerted the FBI in 2018, who commissioned independent tests that indicated the presence of the precious metal.
The agency claims the dig was a bust, but the Paradas believe the FBI continued digging through the night before making off with the loot — and thereby depriving them of a hefty finder’s fee.
The treasure hunters sued the FBI in US District Court in Washington, DC last year, compelling the release of documents related to the dig under the Freedom of Information Act.
Dennis Parada (right) and his son Kem Parada stand at the site of the FBI’s search for Civil War-era gold in September 2018
Scientific investigations on site, commissioned by the FBI, indicated an underground object with a mass of up to 9 tons and a density consistent with that of gold. The FBI used the consultant’s work to obtain a warrant for confiscation of the gold – if any could be found at all
Now, however, they claim that the FBI withheld or “tampered with” important information.
In particular, the plaintiffs are asking for operational documents, which they say will determine whether the agency planned a nighttime dig — crucial to their allegation that officers snuck off with the horde at the time.
The detector specialists also say that the operational photos released by the FBI do not contain timestamps, although the camera used takes them automatically.
Warren Getler, co-author of “Rebel Gold” and a former Wall Street Journal reporter who began working with the Paradas in 2017, told that “the lack of timestamps stems directly from the question of a deliberate cover-up of late-night activities.” is”. ‘.
Dennis Parada, 70, was first alerted to the potential for Civil War gold in the area in 1974 when he read an article in Treasure magazine.
The story revealed that a Union caravan carrying gold bullion in double bottoms was ambushed en route to the US Mint in Philadelphia in Elk County.
In 2004, Parada found a cave in Dents Run after a washout exposed an opening in a mountainside.
He says he’s visited the cave more than 400 times since then and found a bullet casing, whiskey bottle and scattered bones nearby that date back to the 19th century.
Gelter then arranged a meeting with the FBI after radar technology suspected gold was buried there.
The agency hired an independent company to conduct its own tests, which also indicated a large quantity of the precious metal could be found.
Images released last year by the FBI of the dig site led to further speculation about what has and has not been found in the search for the lost Union treasure
A photo released by the FBI shows a hole they dug while searching for the treasure
The FBI brought in more than 50 agents and dug 12 feet deep, but the dig was a bust, or so they say.
A local city official said she saw lights and heard agents working late, while others reported seeing armored vehicles in the city.
Kem recalls being told to “stay in his car” for the duration of the dig.
But when the FBI released a treasure trove of records from the dig, treasure hunters claim they were incomplete.
Many of the FBI photos appear irrelevant, including hundreds of images of randomly selected trees and a forest road leading to the dig site, while others simply don’t add up or raise additional questions, Getler said.
The author claims that the Nikon D700 camera used in the operation automatically had digital timecode displays, but these were absent from the photos released by the FBI.
Anne Weismann, the treasure hunters’ attorney, told that it would be unusual for a federal investigation not to be meticulously recorded.
“From a forensic perspective, you would think they would use the time and date stamp,” she said. “For me, this is a big mistake.”
Weismann also believes the FBI is withholding communication with the company, whose scientific testing suggested the presence of gold at the site and prompted them to file an affidavit requesting a search warrant to confiscate property from the US Treasury Department.
The attorney says the FBI only provided the site analysis provided by surveyor Rettew and refused to confirm subsequent contacts.
“They want us to believe that since they didn’t find anything, there was never a follow-up to this company,” Weismann said.
Getler said the treasure hunters could never prove that the FBI got away with a pot of gold. But he added, “What we can prove is that despite their denials, the FBI conducted an overnight dig.”
The treasure hunters also shared images of the artifacts they said they found during their excavations at the site, including a bullet casing, a whiskey bottle and 19th-century bones scattered nearby
FBI records also show that a few weeks before the dig, an agent from the agency’s art crime team contacted Wells Fargo and asked if the company shipped gold by stagecoach in 1863 for the US Mint.
Wells Fargo historians found no evidence of this, but said records from the period were incomplete.
Wells Fargo shipped gold by stagecoach, a company archivist wrote in an email to the FBI, but large quantities of the precious metal, as well as gold that had to be shipped long distances, were “better shipped by ship or train.”
Getler said the gold may have been transported by wagon rather than stagecoach.
The FBI declined to comment when asked by , but repeatedly denied it continued digging overnight.
It previously said that “no gold or other evidence was found or collected” and that “the only items the FBI removed from the site were the equipment and supplies brought in for the excavation.”
The agency said that while geophysical testing “had indicated a potential heritage site at Dents Run, that possibility was not confirmed by the excavations.”
Rettew said it could not comment due to a confidentiality agreement with the FBI.