In an accompanying 30-page affidavit, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jacob Archer cites tips from treasure hunters, old newspaper clippings and magazine articles as “probable cause” that a ton or more of gold mined in California and destined for the U.S.
Father-and-son team Dennis and Kem Parada think the government may have found the gold and kept it quiet to avoid having to give them a cut of the find.
Archer, a member of the FBI’s art crime team, colorfully detailed how transporting gold from the West to fund the war effort had become an enterprise fraught with peril by 1863, with the changing front lines, gangs of outlaws, Confederate sympathizers known as “copperheads” and “just plain train robbers” all threatened cross-country transport.
According to the story, Castleton paid “an old woods rat known as Joe” to lead the caravan, which became “helplessly lost.” Some of the men went for help, but the rest and the gold were never seen again, despite a comprehensive post-war search by Pinkerton detectives.
But Archer said further research suggested the story was in actuality a “waybill,” or coded map the Knights of the Golden Circle used to mark hidden caches.
Archer said in his affidavit that the FBI hired a contractor to survey the site with a microgravity meter, which detected a “large underground mass” with a density matching that of gold and having a weight of up to nine tons.
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