Treasure hunters who claim the FBI dug up and made off with $500 million worth of Civil War gold under the cover of darkness want the agency to hand over documents they believe will prove whether it planned a nighttime dig.
Father and son Dennis and Kem Parada believe they’ve found a burial ground halfway up a mountain in western Pennsylvania, laden with an 1863 shipment of government gold.
They alerted the FBI in 2018, which commissioned independent tests that indicated the presence of the precious metal.
The agency claims the dig turned out to be a failure, but the Paradas believe the FBI continued their excavations overnight, before making off with the loot – forcing them to pay a hefty finder’s fee.
The treasure hunters sued the FBI in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., last year, forcing the release of documents related to the dig under a freedom of information request.
Dennis Parada, right, and his son Kem Parada stand at the site of the FBI’s dig for Civil War gold in September 2018
Scientific tests at the site on behalf of the FBI indicated an underground object with a mass of up to 9 tons and a density similar to that of gold. The FBI used the consultant’s work to get a warrant to seize the gold – if it could be found at all
But now they claim the FBI withheld or “manipulated” vital information.
Specifically, the plaintiffs are demanding the release of operational data that they say will reveal whether the agency planned a nighttime excavation — crucial to their claim that this was when agents snuck out with the horde.
The detectorists also say that surgery photos released by the FBI are not timestamped, despite the camera being used taking 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 DailyMail.com that the “absence of timestamps is directly related to the issue of a deliberate cover-up.” of nighttime activities. ‘.
Dennis Parada, 70, was first alerted to the possible presence of Civil War gold in the area when he read an article in Treasure magazine in 1974.
The story revealed that a Union caravan carrying gold bars in false bottoms was ambushed on its way to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia in Elk County.
In 2004, Parada found a cave in Dents Run after a washout exposed an opening in the side of a mountain.
He says he has since visited the cave more than 400 times and found a bullet casing, whiskey bottle and bones dating back to the 1800s.
Gelter then arranged a meeting with the FBI after radar technology suggested gold was buried there.
The agency commissioned an independent company to conduct its own tests, which also indicated that a large amount of the precious metal could be found.
Images released by the FBI of the dig site last year fueled further speculation about what may or may not have been found in the search for the lost Union treasure
A photo released by the FBI shows a hole they buried while searching for the treasure
The FBI brought in more than 50 agents and dug down 12 feet, but the dig was a bust, it claims.
A local city official has said she saw lights and heard officers working late at night, while others reported seeing armored vehicles in the city.
Kem recalls being told to “stay in his car” during the dig.
But when the FBI handed over a wealth of data from the dig, they were incomplete, the treasure hunters claim.
Many of the FBI photos seem irrelevant, including the hundreds of images of random trees and a forest road leading to the dig, while others simply don’t add up or raise additional questions, Getler said.
The author claims that the Nikon D700 camera used during the operation contained automatic digital timecode readouts, but these were absent from the photos released by the FBI.
Anne Weismann, the treasure hunters’ attorney, told DailyMail.com it would be unusual for a federal investigation not to be accurately documented.
“From a forensic perspective, you would think they would use the time and date stamp,” she said. “To me, that’s a big mistake.”
Weismann also believes the FBI is withholding communications it had with the company whose scientific tests suggested the presence of gold at the site and prompting it to file an affidavit asking for a warrant to seize assets from the U.S. seize treasury.
The attorney says the FBI only provided the site analysis provided by the surveyor, Rettew, and refuses to confirm any subsequent contact.
“They want us to believe that after they found nothing, there was never any follow-up with that company,” Weismann said.
Getler said the treasure hunters may never be able to prove that the FBI made off with a pot of gold. But he added, “What we can prove is that despite their denial, the FBI did conduct a nighttime dig.”
The treasure hunters also shared images of the artifacts they found during their excavations at the site, including a bullet casing, a whiskey bottle and bones scattered nearby that date back to the 1800s.
The FBI records also show that just weeks before the excavation, an agent on the art crime team at the Bureau approached Wells Fargo to ask if it was shipping gold by stagecoach to the US Mint in 1863.
Wells Fargo historians have found no evidence of it, but said records from that time are 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 transported over long distances, were “better transported by ship or train.”
Getler said the gold may have been transported by wagon, not stagecoach.
The FBI declined to comment when DailyMail.com contacted them, but has repeatedly denied that it kept digging into the night.
It has 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 “suggested a potential cultural heritage site at Dents Run, that possibility was not confirmed by the excavation.”
Rettew has said it cannot comment due to a confidentiality agreement with the FBI.