10 Treasured Details Surrounding Tommy Thompson, Who Discovered Millions In Gold And Won’t Give Anyone Its Location

6 /10 Shipwreck Found

With a crew consisting of engineers and technicians on board a ship equipped with the most sophisticated sonar technology, Thompson made his way onto the off cost of the Carolinas.

After several years of searching, they found just another potential location of the shipwreck. On September 11, 1988, the crew launched an underwater drone to confirm the discovery.

And there it was: the SS Central America some 160 miles off the coast and 7,200 feet down.

Another drone was sent to recover artifacts and, of course, gold. But just like in movies, treasure hunting came with troubles.

5 /10 Legal Issues

Since the discovery of the shipwreck and recovery of gold, it took almost 30 years of litigation and mounting legal documents before the investors could receive their fair share of the treasure.

Once the gold was found, insurance companies filed a lawsuit against the partnership, claiming the treasure had always been theirs since the ship sank.

Thompson was served papers from 39 insurance companies. Insurers argued they owned everything contained in the wreck because they had paid claims on it shortly after the sinking.

4 /10 Tied Up In Court

For almost a decade after the discovery of the shipwreck, the treasure had been practically out of anybody’s reach, not even Thompson’s.

Finally, in 1996, the court determined that Thompson and his partners would retain a whopping 92 percent of the recovered fortune.

The remaining amount was to be divided among the insurers. Now that insurance companies were out of the way, investors began to see a glimpse of their newly acquired wealth.

However, that was not the case. As it turned out, Thompson didn’t want to share.

3 /10 California Gold Marketing Group

Before a fair return on investment was settled, Thompson took the liberty to sell thousands of coins and hundreds of gold bars to the California Gold Marketing Group.

He reportedly made $50 million from the sale. In the meantime, investors expected their return.

By 2005, all 161 of them had not been paid. One by one, they filed a lawsuit against Thompson, demanding some proceeds as promised.

The man went into seclusion, hiding in Gracewood mansion in Vero Beach, Florida, Facing legal troubles. He became a fugitive of the law, hunted by the US Marshals.

2 /10 Growing Reclusive

Agent Brad Fleming believed Thompson was not likely out of the country. However, he asserted that the fugitive might be out in the seas considering his sailing experience.

On the other hand, his family didn’t seem to be much bothered about the legal troubles; they only hoped that Thompson enjoyed his freedom regardless of where he was.

Eventually, the authorities tracked him down in 2015 while staying in a hotel room in Florida. Thompson has been in jail since. As of December 2020, the man owes around $1.8 million in fines.

1 /10 Key To Freedom

In November 2018, Thompson told a judge he didn’t know where the coins were during a hearing.

He claimed to have put the gold in an offshore trust, meaning the trustee was the only person capable of giving the information everybody wanted to hear.

He is now housed at a minimum-security federal prison in Ohio. Thompson once said he could have been free if only he had told the judge the location of the gold; the problem was that he had no information as to where the trustee kept it.