The FBI has been accused of digging up hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Civil War gold and hiding it, as witnesses reported signs of a night dig.
Eric McCarthy, 45, and Don Reichel, 73, said they heard early-morning clatter and saw heavily loaded trucks in the remote woods of Elk County, Pennsylvania.
McCarthy, an elk guide, and his client Reichel woke up before sunrise that day to search for a rack of antlers and saw the FBI’s excavation one hill over.
McCarthy saw a parked excavator, a small piece of equipment moving up and down the hill, a brown-black gash in the earth and people huddling under a canopy at around 5am on March 14, 2018.
The FBI’s timeline instead shows the search team didn’t arrive at the dig site until 8am that morning, hours after the claimed signs of excavation.
‘I can hear some machines, or something, clanging and banging and roaring and all that stuff,’ Reichel told the Associated Press.
Eric McCarthy(pictured), 45, and Don Reichel, 73, said they heard early-morning clatter and saw heavily loaded trucks in the remote woods of Elk County, Pennsylvania
Treasure hunter Dennis Parada, left, and elk guide Eric McCarthy are shown at a hunting camp in Penfield August 23, 2023
The FBI revealed a trove of records earlier this year about its search of a $500million cache of gold lost by the US government in 1863
Fortune seekers Dennis and Kem Parada have sued the FBI last year, alleging a failure to produce records of the excavation and disputing the agents’ claim that the dig came up empty-handed.
The FBI revealed a trove of records earlier this year about its search of a $500million cache of gold lost by the US government in 1863.
The documents released in the legal battle only deepen the mystery over what the agency had unearthed five years ago in Dents Run, Pennsylvania.
‘The FBI may have found the gold — or maybe not,’ a judge noted in a ruling last week.
McCarthy thought Parada, who spent years looking for the gold before approaching the FBI with his findings, has been treated unfairly.
‘I just felt like I needed to say what I saw, you know?’ McCarthy explained. ‘I have no ties to anybody here. It’s just I felt like they were wronged.’
He said a trio of heavily loaded armored trucks rumbling past him and Reichel during their lunch break – with one truck lagging behind seemed to be weighed down.
‘Eric and I both made the comment that one must be loaded.’ Reichel said.
‘It was loaded to the gills,’ said McCarthy, adding he’s driven overloaded dump trucks and ‘I know what it looks like.’
The agents strenuously denies it dug after hours, saying FBI police merely conducted nighttime ATV patrols to secure the site.
‘No gold or other items of evidence were located or collected. The FBI continues to unequivocally reject any claims or speculation to the contrary,’ said spokesperson Carrie Adamowski.
The Paradas believe the FBI carried on their excavation during the night, before making off with the loot – depriving them of a hefty finders’ fee.
An FBI photo portraying the site of its 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold is seen on Dennis Parada’s laptop
The Paradas have sued the FBI last year, alleging a failure to produce records of the excavation and disputing the agents’ claim that the dig came up empty-handed
The lawsuit filed in US District Court in Washington, DC, had forced the release of documents relating to the dig under a Freedom of Information Act request.
But the Paradas now allege that the FBI has withheld or ‘doctored’ vital information.
In particular, the claimants are seeking the release of operational records which they believe will show whether the agency planned a nighttime dig – crucial to their allegation that this is when agents snuck off with the horde.
The detectorists also say operation photographs released by the FBI do not contain timestamps, despite the camera used taking them automatically.
Warren Getler, co-author of ‘Rebel Gold’ and a former Wall Street Journal reporter, who began working with the Paradas in 2017, told DailyMail.com that the ‘absence of timestamps goes directly to the question of a deliberate coverup of nighttime activity’.
Dennis Parada, 70, was first alerted to the possible presence of Civil War gold in the area when reading an article in Treasure magazine in 1974.
McCarthy said a trio of heavily loaded armored trucks rumbling past him and Reichel during their lunch break – with one truck lagging behind seemed to be weighed down
The FBIT strenuously denies it dug after hours, saying its police merely conducted nighttime ATV patrols to secure the site.
The story revealed a Union caravan with gold bars in false bottoms headed to the US Mint in Philadelphia had been ambushed in Elk County.
In 2004, Parada found a cave in Dents Run after a washout exposed an opening in the side of a mountain.
He says he has since visited the cave more than 400 times and has found a bullet shell, whiskey bottle and bones scattered nearby that date to the 19th century.
Gelter then set up a meeting with the FBI after radar technology suggested gold was buried there.
The agency commissioned an independent firm to carry out its own tests, which also indicated a large quantity of the precious metal could be found.
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