There are plenty of reasons why Americans mistrust their government, and the behavior that we’ve witnessed over the course of the last several decades certainly isn’t helping their cause.
The latest strange tale of government deception comes not from Washington, however, but from Pennsylvania, where are father-son team of treasure hunters say that the FBI has made off with literal tons of gold that the duo discovered.
The FBI either lied to a federal judge about having video of its secretive 2018 dig for Civil War-era gold, or illegally destroyed the video to prevent a father-son team of treasure hunters from gaining access to it, an attorney for the duo asserted in new legal filings that allege a government cover-up.
The FBI has long insisted its agents recovered nothing of value when they went looking for the fabled gold cache. But Finders Keepers, a treasure-hunting company that led agents to the remote woodland site in Pennsylvania in hopes of getting a finder’s fee, suspect the FBI found tons of gold and made off with it.
Here’s where it gets fishy:
After Finders Keepers began pressing the government for information about the dig, the FBI initially said it could produce 17 relevant video files. Then, without explanation, the FBI reduced that number to four. Last week, under court order, the agency finally revealed what it said were the contents of those four videos — and it turns out all had been provided to the FBI by Finders Keepers co-owner Dennis Parada himself, weeks before the dig, at a time when he was offering his evidence for buried treasure.
The FBI has suggested that no video exists of the excavation itself, but Finders Keepers insists that they possess evidence to the contrary.
The pair had set up a trail cam in the vicinity, and the device captured images of an FBI agent manning a video camera at the dig site.
