Hidden treasure

Researchers offer new details how they found a 300-year-old ship that sank with $17 billion in treasure

For decades, researchers and governments have searched for a Spanish ship that sank more than 300 years ago, carrying gold and silver worth $17 billion today.
Trying to find the San Jose' has often been called the "holy grail of shipwrecks." It was finally discovered off the coast of Cartegena, Colombia, in 2015. But details of the find were kept under wraps until now -- when researchers with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) got the blessing of various governments to disclose them.

The history of the ship

The San José was a 62-gun, three-masted ship -- the flagship and largest galleon of a Spanish fleet carrying gold, silver and emerald from the mines of Potosi, Peru. It was traveling from Panama to Colombia when it went down on June 8, 1708, during a battle with British ships in the War of the Spanish Succession. Six hundred people were on board.
The British couldn't take the treasure before it sank. And the loss of the San José and its cargo caused financial hardships to merchants throughout Europe and the New World, according to an online account posted by Sea Search Armada (SSA), a group of US investors engaged in marine salvaging.

Hidden treasure

FBI, treasure hunters digging in Elk County, Pa.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) and local treasure hunters were digging in Elk County Tuesday.

The agencies were set up off Route 555 in the community of Dents Run in Benezette Township.

Public Affairs Specialist for the FBI Carrie Adamowski could only confirm that FBI agents were conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity.

6 News cameras also caught Dennis and Kem Parada on site, owners of Finders Keepers.

Finders Keepers is a lost treasure locate and recovery service.

In 2008, Finders Keepers told 6 News the gold in Dents Run is from the Civil War era.

Parada said Abraham Lincoln ordered a gold shipment to help pay union soldiers. He said the wagon left West Virginia with 50 pounds of gold, and came right through Elk County.

In 2012, Finders Keepers claimed they found the gold, but federal law prevented them from digging it up.

Hidden treasure

WWII Trucks With 100 Tons of Gold Found Buried West of Moscow

A German engineer is claiming to have found trucks loaded with 100 tons of gold, silver and jewels buried near a village south-west of Moscow.

The unnamed engineer said he had used ground-penetrating radar to find the location of the trucks laden with riches from the Bank of Smolensk, which had been emptied by Soviet forces during WWII in order to prevent the Nazis looting them.

Bild newspaper in Germany reported on the story Monday morning stating: "The man is an engineer and through his lawyer says he found the missing trucks at the risk of his own life."