Three treasure hunters believe that a huge batch of lost Civil War-era gold has been found in Pennsylvania and clandestinely taken by the government, writes Kris Maher for The Wall Street Journal.

“It’s definitely a major coverup,” said Dennis Parada, who has been chasing the gold for over 40 years.

The gold Parada was looking for comes from the story of a Union caravan filled with gold bars in the false bottoms of wagons that was headed to the U.S. Mint, which was at the time in Philadelphia. The caravan was supposedly ambushed somewhere in Elk County.

Parada believed he found the location in a cave at Dents Run in 2004. In 2017, he and his son, Kem, started working with Warren Getler, co-author of Rebel Gold. The trio said ground-penetrating radar had identified buried metal in the cave.

They contacted the FBI in 2018, which brought over 50 agents and dug down 12 feet at the site, but said they had found nothing.

The trio believes that the FBI took the gold without letting them know.

“I’ve come to the unavoidable conclusion that the FBI did take the treasure under cover of darkness,” said Getler.

Last year, the Paradas sued the FBI hoping to get the documents that will prove them right.

Read more about the Civil War-era gold in The Wall Street Journal.

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