S.S. Central America backstory update.

TwoSides2aCoin

I guess the moral of the story is: "you make your bed, you sleep in it"

https://www.yahoo.com/news/5-years-counting-ex-treasure-152230450.html

Namvet69

The love of money makes normal people do crazy sxxx all the time. Peace Roy

pcgscacgold

@Namvet69 said:
The love of money makes normal people do crazy sxxx all the time. Peace Roy

And when that money comes in the form of 1850's Double Eagles I am sure the pile of gold is driving him mad. Imagine what a stack of 500 gold Double Eagles on the desk in front of you looks like. One look at the picture of the guy and you see crazy in his eyes.

ms70

“He would be out of prison by now if he had simply complied with his plea agreement and cooperated in locating missing assets when he was supposed to,”

There must be something compelling him beyond the value of the coins.

Zoins

@ms70 said:

“He would be out of prison by now if he had simply complied with his plea agreement and cooperated in locating missing assets when he was supposed to,”

There must be something compelling him beyond the value of the coins.

Agree. It seems really odd for him to hold out like this.

I wonder if he's being coerced or somehow threatened.

keets

has anyone considered that he doesn't know the whereabouts of the Gold, as strange as that concept might sound?? the twist is that our Uncle can't prove the negative so they keep him locked up.

Zoins

@keets said:
has anyone considered that he doesn't know the whereabouts of the Gold, as strange as that concept might sound?? the twist is that our Uncle can't prove the negative so they keep him locked up.

A reason they may have to keep him locked up could be that he's considered a flight risk given that he's done it before:

Back in 2012, a different federal judge ordered Thompson to appear in court to disclose the coins' whereabouts. Instead, Thompson fled to Florida where he lived with his longtime female companion at a hotel where he was living near Boca Raton. U.S. marshals tracked him down and arrested him in early 2015.

keets

all that demonstrates to me is that he most probably knew where the coins were in 2012. who's to say what happened to them(more specifically, what Thompson did with them) between 2012-2015?? who's to say what happened to them between 2015 when he was imprisoned and right now?? it's a stupid technicality, but he probably doesn't know where they are. it's not like they're sitting in a SDB somewhere or someone's sock drawer.

there's a Law and Order "Criminal Intent" episode that touches on this topic, a guy sitting in jail on a Contempt Order because he won't divulge the location of marital assets. that one ends bad for everyone involved.

Zoins

@keets said:
there's a Law and Order "Criminal Intent" episode that touches on this topic, a guy sitting in jail on a Contempt Order because he won't divulge the location of marital assets. that one ends bad for everyone involved.

What happened here? And why wouldn't he divulge the location?

JazzmanJAB

FREE TOMMY !

keets

a wealthy couple divorced and the Husband had secretly placed money in an offshore account, somewhere in the Bahama's, which he wouldn't divulge the location of to the Court. after about five years in jail on contempt charges and still not revealing the location, the Wife, through some diligent and self-sacrificing detective work, discovers who had/has been in possession of the account numbers and she concocts a scheme to obtain that information.

the episode begins with the discovery of three murders and Goren/Eames unraveling the mystery. in the end, the account numbers have been destroyed, the money lost, the Husband freed from Jail and the Wife headed to prison. it is a Classic.

fathom

He will need to keep his head on a swivel when he gets out.

gonzer

@Zoins said:

@ms70 said:

“He would be out of prison by now if he had simply complied with his plea agreement and cooperated in locating missing assets when he was supposed to,”

There must be something compelling him beyond the value of the coins.

Agree. It seems really odd for him to hold out like this.

I wonder if he's being coerced or somehow threatened.

He probably doesn't want to wake up one morning with a severed horse head in his bed.

ricko

I believe he 'knew' where they were - initially. However, I would agree with Al at this point - he no longer knows where they are. That being said, if he divulged where they were, it would lead the authorities to who moved them and from there to the current location. He is in a no-win situation. Cheers, RickO

Coinosaurus

The bizarre thing is that he agreed to the plea deal to begin with, which required disclosure. Maybe he thought he would do the plea deal and simply serve the 18 months for contempt of court.

SanctionII

Someone should metal detect the area where the Saddle Ridge gold coins were found.

Maybe Thompson arranged to hide the 500 double eagles there.

Or maybe he did what the lady did at the end of Titanic and dropped the 500 double eagles into the ocean above the site of the shipwreck.

If Thompson dies without telling where the double eagles are these coins will become the object of treasure hunters in the future

sellitstore

@keets said:
has anyone considered that he doesn't know the whereabouts of the Gold, as strange as that concept might sound?? the twist is that our Uncle can't prove the negative so they keep him locked up.

That doesn't explain why he won't sign a power of attorney to investigate the trust in Belize which probably can tell us what happened to the assets of the trust-the coins.

I'll go with @Coinosaurus theory. Eighteen months for a few million isn't bad pay serving in a country club prison.

CaptainBlunt

Not 500 1857-s Double Eagles

The 500 coins were the round 50 dollar gold pieces

They were made from the gold of melted Kellogg & Humbert bars recovered from the wreck

TwoSides2aCoin

It is a twisted tale. There are plenty of trusting and hopeful investors waiting a lot of years....Probably will never know the whereabouts, but five years seems brutal. Well, until it washes up on the shores of the poor.
As in this tale.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/world/venezuela-gold-rush-fishing-village.amp.html

Walkerfan

Read this yesterday, myself.

He's likely seeing if he can outlast Uncle Sam and then cash in on the GOLD!!

He has the FEVER, no doubt!!

He also seems to have the wild-eyed STARE!!

ms70

At this point even if the coins are found they could not be absolutely attributed to the shipwreck. I would think that since Thompson has lost all credibility & there's no verifiable chain of custody, any historic premium is now gone.

Along

This story just gets better and better

Mr_Paladin

I am sure I heard of this story at one point during the initial court case but am I to understand he only recovered 500 coins or did the original owners, the banks/companies lay claim to his find.

And why are the so called investors so upset???

Sorry I cant cant call this an investment because treasure hunting is not an investment.

In situations like treasure hunting you are an idiot to put money into it if you cant afford to lose it. unless you are the gullible greedy type.

Even though it was found, the legal ramifications of finding a sunken ship with gold, silver or whatever on it, I am sure has been well litigated and found majorly in favor or any original owners or their heirs. Especially in cases where it is a USA based ship and the original owners are still around meaning in business. Or at least that is what my opinion would be. But I could be wrong.

Either way, I truly think he does not know where the coins are. I dont think he can know where they are because they probably no longer exist in their original form of a coin.

My best bet based on my limited understanding of the story and not knowing what was actually salvaged, what entities laid claim to and granted ownership to the shipwreck is that the missing coins were melted for their gold value.

Reason being is what do you think he was living off of while in hiding. People of this nature generally live large undetected for a while and probably thought that he could easily access more at sometime and nobody would be the wiser.

What gets me is the number of coins. Why exactly 500 why not 508 coins? And what about the rest of the treasure? what did the people who gave money get from that. If what I said above is true regarding original owners then why do they think they have claim to these coins?

Did the people have contracts with Thompson stating their percentage of the cut versus his take of the treasure...if there was a contract, what did it specify if there should be a legal challenge by any original owners.
Sounds to me like sour grapes on the people who lost their monies side. They all thought they would be filthy rich and when the original owners possibly came forward, their cuts were drastically reduced so they asked a judge to take Thompsons portion.

Again this is all speculation on my part based on my limited knowledge of the story.

so many unanswered questions....

Anyone in for a nice treasure hunt in the south east corner of the Arizona superstition mountains. I hear that is where the lost dutchman mine really is and a map I found as a kid 40+ years ago is proof.

Thanks everyone for reading my awfully long post and my 1st post
I hope it got your brains thinking on a sunday afternoon

Hydrant

Obviously he's not mentally well. Let him go free. He's not going to change his story. ALL INVESTMENT IS A RISK. Everybody knew that going in. If I had been an investor and it turned out the way it did I would just move along and never look back. Learning experience. Been there done that. All investment is a risk................Almost like investing in bullion. Or collector coins.😳

ms70

@Hydrant said:
Obviously he's not mentally well. Let him go free. He's not going to change his story. ALL INVESTMENT IS A RISK. Everybody knew that going in. If I had been an investor and it turned out the way it did I would just move along and never look back. Learning experience. Been there done that. All investment is a risk................Almost like investing in bullion. Or collector coins.😳

Yes, investment is a risk but it's not supposed to be a risk due to criminal activity. The investors have a right to try recoup something.