FBI feared Pennsylvania would seize rumored Civil War-era gold hoard, records say

An FBI agent applied for a seizure warrant to look for gold that supposedly was hidden during the Civil War in Pennsylvania, according to newly unsealed court documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The AP and the Philadelphia Inquirer petitioned the judge involved to unseal the case, and the outlets were able to attain the documents Thursday. 

“I have probable cause to believe that a significant cache of gold is secreted in the underground cave,” wrote Jacob Archer, a member of the FBI art crime team in Philadelphia.

The gold was suspected to be hidden in a cave at a site called “Dent’s Run.” 

According to the court documents, the FBI agent wanted a seizure warrant to look for gold in Pennsylvania because he believed the state would have laid claim to the gold if the federal government had asked Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) for permission to examine the site.

“I am concerned that, even if DCNR gave initial consent for the FBI to excavate the cache of gold secreted at the Dent’s Run Site, that consent could be revoked before the FBI recovered the United States property, with the result of DCNR unlawfully claiming that that cache of gold is abandoned property and, thus, belongs to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” the affidavit reportedly said, according to AP.

Archer claimed the gold had been “stolen during the Civil War.”

The AP reported in March that the FBI had gone to Dent’s Run with treasure hunters in 2018 to look for fabled gold from the Civil War era. According to the AP, no gold was found at the site.

The FBI agent also alleged an affidavit that a legislative staffer had tried to acquire some of the treasure for himself. According to the documents obtained by the news outlet, in 2013, the staffer had hired treasure hunters and “corruptly” offered them a permit to dig at the supposed site where the gold was buried. The staffer allegedly offered 10 percent of the findings to the hunters. 

According to Archer, the staffer said that he was acting on behalf of the government. No one has been charged in connection to this case, and prosecutors say that they believe this case is closed, according to AP.