Treasure hunter accuses FBI of covering up discovery of billions in Civil War gold

Dennis Parada of the Finders Keepers organization sued the FBI to release records of the excavation of the missing 1863 gold shipment. Along with eyewitnesses, he accuses the Federal Bureau of Investigation of digging up more than $11 billion worth of Civil War gold in the middle of the night five years ago and taking it in secret to an unknown location. The FBI says no gold has been found, but it is concealing some important circumstances and refusing to release certain documents.

Although there is little indication in the historical record that a section of the U.S. Army in Pennsylvania wilderness lost a gold shipment destined for the Philadelphia Mint in 1863, the legend has inspired treasure hunters for more than a century. Dennis Parada and his son Kem spent years searching for the Dents Run gold. Finally, they may have succeeded - they led the FBI to a remote wooded site about 160 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, where instruments identified vast quantities of the metal.

A geophysical company called in discovered seven to nine tons of gold-like material at the site. A team of FBI agents arrived, including a cameraman who recorded the situation: "Through investigation, we have identified a site that we believe to contain U.S. property and which contains a significant amount of precious metal - mainly gold, possibly silver," said the blurry-faced agent. The agent went on to say that the FBI confirmed Parada's information through "scientific testing." He added that only a dig will help law enforcement "get to the bottom of this story once and for all."

Parada obtained the video and other FBI records through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. He now suspects the bureau conducted an overnight undercover dig, found the gold and took it away. Although there were witnesses who heard the rumble of heavy machinery and excavators early in the morning, the FBI denied any overnight digging and finding of the gold.

Forty-five-year-old elk guide Eric McCarthy and his client, seventy-three-year-old Don Reichel, were searching for freshly dropped elk antlers in the remote woods of Elk County, Pennsylvania, early one morning when they heard the rumble of heavy machinery. Then they spotted the FBI-marked trucks. According to the FBI's recorded timeline, their personnel did not arrive at the site until 8 a.m., and the backhoe operator even later, but the antler pickers had seen heavy equipment moving at the excavation site as early as 3 hours earlier.

McCarthy spotted the 14th. March 2018 around 5:00 a.m., a parked excavator, smaller equipment moving up and down the hill, a brown-black excavation in the ground, and people huddled under a shelter: "I just felt like I had to tell what I saw," McCarthy explained to the AP. "I have no ties to anyone here. I just felt like they were wronged," he added.

Around the lunch hour, a trio of heavily loaded armored trucks drove past him and Reichel, with one lagging behind the others. "Eric and I both remarked that this one needed to be reloaded," Reichel said. "It was loaded to the top," McCarthy added, adding that he has driven the overloaded dump trucks and knows what they look like. Their recollections are consistent with earlier statements by local residents who told the AP they heard an excavator and a backhoe overnight and saw the convoy, including armored vehicles.

However, the agents continue to strenuously deny that digging took place at any time other than the recorded hours and that armored vehicles were on the site. According to the statement, the authorities only conducted night patrols using ATVs to secure the site. "No gold or other evidential items were found or collected. The FBI continues to unequivocally deny any allegations or speculation to the contrary," said FBI spokeswoman Carrie Adamowski.

But father and son Parada don't believe them, accusing the FBI of misrepresenting key evidence and improperly withholding records. The FBI defends its handling of the material. The dispute is playing out in federal court, where a judge must decide whether the FBI will have to release the records it wants to keep secret. "We feel that we were deceived and that we were lied to," Parada said. He's not just after the mystery and the truth, he's also hoping to get a reward of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold.

Parada and his consultant, Warren Getler, focused on the FBI photos. The problem is the presence or absence of snow in the pictures and the period of the snowstorm that disrupted traffic. One FBI photo, which should have been taken about an hour after the storm, shows no snow on the big boulder. The same boulder was covered with snow the next morning - FBI records show it was taken 15 hours after the storm.

"We have compelling evidence that there was a nighttime excavation, and that the FBI made a significant effort to make these nighttime excavations to cover up," said Getler, co-author of Rebel Gold, a book that explores Civil War-era caches and treasures. According to the Finders Keepers lawsuit, there are other apparent anomalies in the records.

The FBI initially turned in hundreds of photographs, but most were in low-resolution black and whitem and high contrast, making it impossible to determine the time they were taken or, in some cases, what they depicted. The agency also did not provide any video of the second day of the excavation or any photos or video of what they themselves on the hand-drawn map they describe as a 10-meter-long and 4-meter-deep trench that treasure hunters say may have been dug overnight. While government lawyers acknowledged these missing gaps in the record, they did not specify them in a court filing last week.

A geophysical firm for the FBI released a report on its findings, but the version provided to the treasure hunters is missing key pages. The FBI also did not provide any travel and expense invoices. Such records "call into question the FBI's claims and raise serious and troubling questions about the FBI's conduct during thekicks and in this litigation, where they have acted largely to distort critical evidence," said Anne Weismann, a lawyer for Finders Keepers.

After the FBI notified Parada that the dig had come up empty, he filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the classified records. In 2022, a judge forced the FBI to release some of the photographs and documents, but Parada is seeking more material, including a plan of operations. A federal judge told the FBI last week that it must come up with a better justification for keeping the disputed records.

In the meantime, Parada is seeking cooperation from the state historic preservation agency, which owns the property, on a new excavation. "It's a part of our history that's being hidden from us," Parada said. "I think it's time to get the word out."

Video

Roman Nemec

Sources: apnews.com, nbcphiladelphia.com, dailymail.co.uk

fbi digger

Dennis shows photos released by the fbi

Dennis and Kem Parad

proof photo

Eric McCaerthy

screen from the video