The search for Civil War-era gold left one treasure-hunting family locked with the FBI whom they believe are behind a “major coverup” worth $500 million.
Elk County, Pennsylvania is believed to hold the location of Dennis Parada’s greatest discovery and a suspected betrayal by federal officials. Now, as an ongoing legal battle aims to uncover the truth about what happened on a dig over five years ago, the treasure hunter spoke with The Wall Street Journal about how Union gold may have been snatched up in the middle of the night.
Parada, who began his Finders Keepers treasure hunting business out of Clearfield, Pennsylvania in 2004 with his son Kem, outlined the case his attorney Anne Weismann said “just doesn’t add up.”
Starting the business had been inspired by Parada’s discovery of a cave located in Dents Run, Pennsylvania that he believed was connected to a Treasure magazine article he had read 30 years earlier.
As detailed by the Journal, the story “said a Union caravan with gold bars in the false bottoms of wagons headed from Wheeling, W.Va., to the U.S. Mint, then in Philadelphia, was ambushed somewhere in Elk County.”
“In 2017, the Paradas started working with Warren Getler, co-author of ‘Rebel Gold’ and a former Wall Street Journal reporter,” the newspaper explained. “Getler told them he believed Confederate sympathizers allied with a secretive society known as the Knights of the Golden Circle likely stole and hid the gold.”
After informing the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources that they had found evidence suggesting gold could be in the cave, the treasure hunter said he had spotted state officials in the area on trail cams he had placed nearby.
In Jan. 2018, a meeting with the FBI led to a government-hired surveyor assessing the site and, two months later, a warrant was sought and obtained over concerns Pennsylvania would attempt to claim any gold belonging to the U.S. Treasury.
A dig down to 12 feet conducted by 50 agents led the FBI to state, “Nothing was found, and the excavation ended on Wednesday, March 14.”
But, the way in which events unfolded led the treasure hunters to believe they had been scammed by the feds out of collecting their finder’s fee.
A Metal Detectorist is Suing the FBI, Claiming He Alerted Them to 7 Tons of Civil War-Era Gold and They Took It Away in a Secret Overnight Dig
Dennis Parada waged a legal battle to force the FBI to turn over records of its excavation in Dents Run, Pennsylvania, where local lore pic.twitter.com/hKfWxSqmZB
— DefyTheNorm (@Defy_Norm) February 20, 2023
“I’ve come to the unavoidable conclusion that the FBI did take the treasure under cover of darkness,” Getler said while Parada suspected, “It’s definitely a major coverup.”
Locals had described seeing armored trucks in the area at the time and the younger Parada recounted of the FBI dig team, “They say, hey stay in your car. Stay warm. We’ll let you know when it’s time to go up the hill.”
The Paradas went on to sue the FBI in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. over the agency’s failure to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request. In addition to allegations of making off with $500 million worth of gold, the men believe that the FBI doctored records to cover their tracks.
As it happened, the survey company hired by the government asserted they could not comment to the Journal because of a confidentiality agreement with the DOJ and the FBI claimed, “No gold or other items of evidence were located or collected. The only items the FBI removed from the site were the equipment and supplies brought in for the dig.”
Weismann surmised to the Journal, “The FBI insists they found nothing, but they have gone out of their way not to produce any documents that show that they found nothing. The thing about this case is stuff just doesn’t add up.”
Now, they are awaiting a judge’s determination as to whether or not the FBI is required to turn over more information.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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