Treasure hunter Dennis Parada, who has spent time chasing a fabled trove of American Civil War gold, is waging a courtroom battle against the FBI whom he accuses of distorting evidence and withholding records related to the booty, according to media reports.
The gold in question supposedly disappeared in 1863 while being transported to the US Mint in Philadelphia, vanishing somewhere in the vicinity of Dents Run in Pennsylvania, if he local lore is to be believed.
Having previously investigated the site, the FBI said the dig contained no gold and maintained that position ever since.
Parada’s latest accusations come as the FBI had to release a number of photos, maps and documents related to the government agency’s search.
“We feel we were double-crossed and lied to,” Parada said as quoted by media, adding that “the truth will come out.”
The treasure hunter and his son reportedly pursued the Dents Run gold for years and even guided the FBI to the dig site, located about 220 kilometers north of Pittsburgh, where Paradas’ instruments supposedly detected a mass of metal beneath the ground.
Following a subsequent survey by a geophysical consulting firm, a team of FBI agents with a warrant proceeded to dig up the area in March 2018, their efforts apparently being for naught.
Parada, however, suspects that the FBI managed to covertly recover the gold sometime between the first and second days of the “court-authorized excavation,” as the media describes it, and whisked it away.
Locals previously said they heard sounds of activity at the dig site overnight, when the work there was supposed to be paused and saw a “convoy of FBI vehicles, including large armored trucks,” one media outlet noted.
The FBI, however, rejects the allegations, while insisting they did not find any gold at the site in a statement issued last year.
Nevertheless, Parada’s consultant Warren Gettler said that he and Gellter have “compelling evidence a night dig took place, and that the FBI went to some large effort to cover up that night dig.” They are yet to reveal the nature of the purported evidence.