Original subtitles

Narrator: Tonight on beyond oak island...

Bobby: We found shipwrecks. Artifacts.

The state of florida went behind our back.

There is something fundamentally unfair about this.

"you find something, we're gonna not let you have it."

rick: And it happened

with these other treasure hunts.

Don kesterson: The japanese were losing world war ii

and they have the golden budda

and they had to get it buried.

David m.: They found saxon coins

-and viking jewelry. -Gary: They stood

to get three to five million dollars.

Really?

All while we were growing up,

my brother and I were fascinated

with finding treasure.

Rick: Pirate treasure,

cursed treasure.

Civil war gold.

-since then, our work on oak island

has shown us there's a world of mysteries...

-Whoa. -...Waiting to be explored.

So, we like to reach out to other treasure hunters.

X marks the spot, right there. Brilliant.

-Marty: We want to hear their stories... -That's right.

-...And share our insights. -"ill-gotten gains."

-rick: And who knows... -Gary: I got it.

...Maybe we can help them with their search.

-Marty: Not only in america. -Wow. That is gold.

-Rick: But all over the world. -Yeah!

Marty: Beyond oak island.

Matty: So, guys, we've filled this table, like,

several times with all of the incredible finds

you've made here on oak island.

So, as it stands right now,

when you pull something exciting out, what happens?

Who gets it?

If it's an artifact, the government has dibs on it.

-They don't have to take it. -Rick: Right, but items

that have significance deemed by them,

it's necessary to give those items,

turn those items over to the province.

Marty: But if we find jewels

in their non-natural state

and metals in their non-natural state,

we're entitled to 90% of the value of it.

Rick: But there might be

a dispute between "artifact" and "treasure."

so, there runs the risk--

from what I'm hearing from you-- is, okay,

"you guys get to keep treasure, fine.

We want the historical stuff," basically.

But they could say, "hey, that templar gold cross,

-that's a piece of history, so give that to us." -yes.

-Yes, so it's a little bit fuzzy on the edges. -Ah.

You know, it's a little disconcerting,

'cause I can see how this can get complicated really fast.

You know, I think of that phrase, when we were kids, uh,

finders keepers, losers weepers.

You know what I mean? Like, you could find it,

but not be able to keep it. That's...

I-I can give you a real-world example, matty.

Uh, you know, rick and I have been fascinated

with treasure hunting. That's no secret.

Since we were boys.

And over the years, I've invested

in some other ventures, and one in particular

makes a really good story-- exactly on the point

you're talking about-- and that is

what happens when you actually find something?

Who is the one who keeps?

Hmm.

oh, what is it?

Steve: This could be something big.

Whoa.

Narrator: In 2013,

while searching for metal objects in the oak island swamp,

rick, marty and members of their team

were excited to find what appeared to be

an old spanish coin.

Tony: What the hell is that?

Charles: It's a spanish maravedí.

Yes!

Marty: Well, we got a lot riding on this little coin.

Jason: Let's take a look under the microscope.

Narrator: Early the next year,

they brought the coin to be cleaned and examined

at global marine exploration, a florida-based company.

Clearly, this leads me to believe that this thing

did spend, uh, several hundred years

-in the swamp. -That's good.

Narrator: It was during their visit to global marine

that marty and rick were introduced to bobby pritchett,

the company's owner, a man with vast experience

locating artifacts and sunken treasure off the florida coast.

Bobby: I started diving in my 20s, and I liked it so much

that it just became not an obsession,

but, you know, just something

that I wanted to do for a living.

I went and met and interviewed

with as many different treasure hunters as I could,

and they were fascinating people.

And, uh, it kind of hooked me right in.

And from that point on,

I just kept going out and looking for wrecks.

And eventually, we got contracts to do the work.

Narrator: Bobby pritchett's first contract took him

to the dominican republic in October of 2010.

Bobby: We were immediately successful.

We found many shipwrecks. Lots of artifacts.

Several months later, we had another contract

for the east coast of the dominican republic.

And again, we were immediately successful

finding several shipwrecks,

and worked one specifically called pewter wreck.

Narrator for bobby pritchett, the so-called pewter wreck

came in the form of a mid-16th century merchant ship,

probably spanish, that yielded the single largest cache

of 16th-century pewter tableware ever discovered.

It was a sunken treasure worth millions of dollars.

Bobby: Beautiful, beautiful 500-year-old pewter

that we were able to recover and conserve

a large amount of it. In fact,

some of it's actually in the queen's palace in England.

So that's pretty cool.

Narrator: Bobby's success in the dominican republic

encouraged him to start his own treasure salvage company.

The purpose of global marine

was to go out and do the research,

survey, locate shipwrecks, identify what's there

and then recover what we found.

Do conservation work on it

and either turn it in to the museums

or turn it in to the auctions.

Narrator: Among the potential investors in bobby's first solo venture

were oak island treasure hunters

marty lagina and craig tester.

Marty: We went and visited them.

And they seemed very competent.

They showed us around the stuff they'd found.

Craig: And they just happened to be looking

for investors at the time,

so, uh, marty and I decided to jump on board.

Narrator: Besides the enormous costs,

diving on wrecks in the ocean presents a number of other

even more daunting challenges.

Bobby: It's very dangerous.

Especially if you're not trained to use the equipment,

being out on the open sea,

a swell could come up and it could capsize the boat.

And then you have to worry about the sharks in the water.

And barracuda.

People can die.

Narrator: But in spite of all of the various financial,

legal and maritime obstacles..

...Bobby pritchett was convinced

that global marine could be a success.

We went and visited sir robert morris,

who is the godfather of archeology and treasure hunting.

And he showed us a lot of research that showed

the mass amount of shipwrecks

that should have been at cape canaveral.

Because of the shoals

that are offshore of cape canaveral,

these ships that would be passing by,

coming up from cuba and other places,

coming up the new bahama channel

and going back to europe, these shoals

were so far offshore they thought that

they were in deeper water.

They would just wreck.

So, we started looking at cape canaveral

and asking the state of florida for permits.

Marty: Bobby, who does things right,

needed money to do it right.

He had the permits, but he needed money to outfit his ship,

his boat, uh, with the proper equipment.

And so, we made a deal.

Craig and I advanced quite a large sum of money

and joined the search.

Everyone knows about these spanish ships carrying

all this looted treasure from the new world back to Spain.

And the numbers are astounding.

I mean, what these things carried.

In today's money, uh, easily a billion dollars per ship.

Narrator: After scouring the ocean bottom

over the next several years,

bobby pritchett and his partners

finally hit pay dirt.

Craig: We were finding a lot of possible hits,

some large ones that could be cannons, and end up finding

five or six locations that were, uh, ships, so it was great news.

Bobby: It's like, "man, I can't believe it. We just found it."

I mean, it's quite amazing.

Narrator: Archeologists confirmed

that the team had found the untouched remnants

of five shipwrecks.

The only questions left now were how to retrieve it

and how much was it all worth?

Pritchett: We had four archeologists come in,

and they looked at the data.

They looked at their research.

And they came up with the valuations

based on the anchors that we found given the tonnage.

The low one was at $300 million.

The high one was wh... At $1.2 billion.

Narrator: Bobby pritchett had risked everything,

and now it looked like he and his investors

were about to cash in.

Matty: So...

You're not wearing any gold bracelets or anything.

Tell me this all works out

and you made a billion dollars with craig.

Rick: You know what, I'm sure

that marty and craig wish they could say that.

But, uh, we'd be lying.

It-it has not

-worked out like that. -Marty: Mm-mmm.

Just how bad did things get?

Matty, it's-it's, uh, it's-it's not only bad,

it's worse than-than one could have imagined, honestly.

There's a dark side to all of this, isn't there?

-There is. -No question.

Marty: There's some major disappointments even after

all the disappointments that get you there.

And then you make the big find

and here comes a rash of more disappointment.

Narrator: Shortly after applying for and receiving

all the permits needed to locate and survey

a massive sunken treasure

off the coast of cape canaveral, florida,

bobby pritchett and his investors

ran into a number of problems,

chief of which was that among the many items found

was a marble obelisk and a 16th-century bronze cannon

engraved with a french fleur-de-lis.

Marty: You know, in my mind, the spanish colonized florida.

What I didn't know is that that's not true.

St. Augustine was the earliest european settlement in florida.

But it wasn't founded by the spanish.

It was founded by the french.

And this obelisk that bobby found

is this very symbology of what really happened,

I mean, priceless in the sense of unraveling bits of history

from the state of florida.

Narrator: Unfortunately, the very objects

that marty lagina thought would be proof

of a significant historical find

proved to be bobby pritchett's undoing.

Although he was convinced

that the ships he found were spanish

and that the french items were most likely plunder

that had been captured in battle,

the state of florida saw things very differently.

Pritchett: When you turn in the report of what you found

and they see that there are french cannon and a l...

You know, um, fleur-de-lis,

they immediately assumed it was french.

Narrator: According to florida state authorities,

bobby pritchett had found not just a french ship

but most likely the remains of a long-lost sailing vessel

called la trinité,

which was part of a fleet

that had left France in 1565,

carrying 1,000 soldiers and 100 colonists

to an outpost in northern florida.

Pritchett: Florida immediately assumed that it was la trinité

and started communicating with France

to see how to handle a sovereign ship.

So we submitted reports asking for a recovery permit,

and they just eventually stopped answering the phone.

Narrator: Because the state of florida

assumed the wreck to be la trinité,

they began basing all future decisions

on the sunken military craft act of 2004--

a federal act that protects any vessel

that was on a military mission in u.S. Waters.

This, in turn, allowed France

to claim sovereignty over the ship and its contents.

Pritchett: Once we found what they believed to be la trinité,

the state of florida took it upon themself

to assume all the wrecks were french.

And florida cannot give us

the permit to salvage a foreign vessel.

But there's no actual proof

that any one of those ships is french,

much less what they say is la trinité.

Narrator: Unfortunately,

without concrete proof of his theory,

bobby-- like the treasure ship itself-- was sunk.

In the end, France was granted the rights

to everything bobby pritchett had found.

Pritchett: It's a tough, tough situation.

Just about all my money has gone into this business.

We got investors. The company owes people money.

Now, I'm the last person left in global marine.

I have to sell my house in order to be able to survive.

It's...

Just about ruined me.

Narrator: Earlier this year,

at a meeting held at marty lagina's home

in florida, bobby pritchett

met with both marty and craig tester

to give his partners an update

on where things stood with the florida government

and to spell out his legal battle with the state.

-Hey, marty. -Hey, bobby.

Narrator: If the florida authorities are successful

in claiming that the wrecks

bobby pritchett found are french

and not spanish,

the treasure hunter stands to lose all of the time

and millions of dollars

he and his partners have poured into their search.

Well, anyway, craig, thanks for coming over,

because, uh, I talked bobby into coming to tell us

about what's going on with our investment,

-basically. -Mm-hmm. What's the next step?

Is there a next step?

Pritchett: The next step is,

in florida, to keep moving forward in the court case.

-Okay. -Okay. -Pritchett: They say

that one of the ships we found is la trinité.

-Mm-hmm. -But I have too much research

that says it's not.

One thing is we have a map from 1565

that was in the library of congress

that shows where la trinité lies.

And it shows the name of the captain,

and it's 90 miles north of us, and it...

But never been located physically, right?

That's 'cause nobody looked for it up there.

-Hmm. -Wow. -So the ship that we found--

I don't think any archaeologist will say,

"I'm 100% sure that this is the trinité."

marty: Okay, but let's say

they accept that it's the french flagship,

and they did it right by going to France.

What about the other four?

Are they saying all of them are french?

Something wrong about that.

The burden of proof is on them,

and there's no proof of that.

-Right. -But even still,

if it is the trinité...

-Mm-hmm. -I know that just because

it's sovereign immune doesn't take our rights away

for the amount of work that we've done.

Right.

We still did the research

and we still went out and did all the surveying,

we identified it, so we should be compensated

for the amount of work that we did.

Hopefully, the judge sees it

-the way we see it. -Marty: Yeah.

What's in it for the state of florida? If they just...

Are they gonna get something out of this deal with France

that they wouldn't have got otherwise? Explain that to me.

Pritchett: You know, what I've read so far,

France doesn't want the material in France.

They're gonna allow the state of florida to keep it here.

So they'll build a museum.

And they would house all the material there.

They'll get grants from the navy, from noaa,

from the state, from the federal government,

-parks and recreation. -Yeah, okay.

But now you have to understand that the state,

in their permit contract, it says

that we are to get 80%

of what we recover, and they are to get 20.

But if they don't allow you to recover...

Well, then, is the obvious reason

that they're gonna get it for free instead of paying 80%?

Yes.

All they got to do is recover it.

there's something fundamentally unfair about this.

-Yeah. -I mean, fundamentally unfair.

-Right. -Marty: What's the message

from the state of florida? If you find something,

you treasure hunters, don't tell us?

-That's-that's right. -Yeah.

-Yeah. Right. -Take it at 2:00 in the morning, and-and

sell it, uh, in the black market,

because otherwise, you're not gonna get anything.

What you're gonna get is bankruptcy.

-Mm-hmm. -You know, I'm not gonna say

that the money wasn't a motivator for us

to get involved with you. It was, you know.

But it's also for the excitement,

-and it's also for the history. -Yeah.

-Absolutely. -I'm-I'm really annoyed

that we don't get to know

what really happened out there.

You don't think it's a french ship,

but it's got these french artifacts on it.

Well, there's a story there, and the story's still buried.

There's something seriously wrong with that.

Yes, there is.

With everything that's happened, it's kind of hard

to get excited about anything right now.

But there's still those few moments, every once in a while,

that... That make it worthwhile.

Some of the archaeologists have said

this is one of the most significant finds in florida,

if not the whole united state,

because it was part of what changed the history of florida.

And for me, you know,

it's just a great feeling of accomplishment.

And you do sit back and say,

"damn, that was a lot of work, but it was worth it."

and I'm gonna stay here until we resolve these court cases.

I can't break away from this.

I'm stuck in this until I get past these issues.

I'm just gonna have to see what'll happen in the future.

All that work, all those hours, all the money,

all the blood, sweat and tears,

and he finds it, and he can't get his hands on it.

It's-it's not fair.

Marty: Yeah, but in fact, matty,

you know, governments win. They have all the authority.

Yeah, but you can't... You can't put everyone in the same group.

I mean, England, for instance-- and you're aware of it--

they-they have a very enlightened policy

about treasure hunting. I mean,

gary could go over there, metal detect,

make an incredible find,

and then, by law, he has to inform the authorities.

But then, the authorities can do one of two things.

They can either say, "you can keep 50% of it

"or we will place a monetary value on the find,

"and we will give you 50% of the... Of the worth

of the find." and then it goes into a museum

where the world community can experience it

and look at it and apply historical context to it.

So, that is a very enlightened policy.

That is brilliant. And you know what, that's a fair policy.

-Right. -And it's good for the people,

it's good for the country, it's good for the searchers.

That's an enlightened policy.

Rick: At the end of the day,

everybody wins.

I mean, talk about maxims.

"everybody wins" is a great maxim, right?

Yeah, sure it is.

Better than, "finders keepers, losers weepers."

-yeah. -Well, I'm telling you right now,

-the lagina brothers would settle for 50. -Yeah.

-well...

Matty: Oh, marty, that's good stuff.

Matty: It's funny, though. Even if a government has

a fair treasure-hunting policy, the other problem is

some hunters-- I know of some cases actually, I think--

where some hunters say, "look, if I play by the rules,

"you're gonna screw me anyway,

-so, I'm gonna do it my way." -mm-hmm.

-And-and then you have that. -That's just greed, matty.

"I don't want 50%. I want 100%."

-I want it all. Yup. -Right.

And you can't stop that, can you?

Yeah, I guess you can't legislate greed.

-No. -No, you can't.

You can't legislate stopping criminal behavior.

You can't do that.

You can make it a crime, and then people can choose.

I know there's a case in the u.K., specifically...

-Right. -Of guys who figured, "hey, man,

we're gonna just push this aside and do it my way."

narrator: More than 1,000 years ago,

a band of vikings left a treasure trove

of 300 precious rings, coins and jewelry

buried in a hillside in leominster, England.

The trove stayed hidden until 2015

when two men from wales,

layton davies and george powell,

dug it up while metal detecting.

The estimated value of their find:

More than $3.8 million.

Because the hoard is a mix

of ninth and tenth century objects,

according to britain's 1996 treasure act,

anyone who believes they have found a metal object

300 years or older has to report the find to authorities

within two weeks.

As far as the british are concerned,

these objects have not only commercial value

but great historical value

that is often worth many times more than money.

Coins are a lot more than just money.

Um, most of what we know about the history

of the ancient world, uh,

comes from what we've found on coins.

People-people like to put,

uh, what's officially important

to their culture onto money.

These coins were from the 9th century,

which is a very, very interesting time

in english history.

The vikings had come and were actually at war

with the kingdoms of mercia and wessex.

And those two kingdoms

struck a strategic alliance at the time,

which is not really well understood right now.

And there were coins in this find

that actually have improved our understanding

of just how that alliance worked.

The two emperor pennies are really quite rare.

A highly significant historical find.

Narrator: Unfortunately, the two men

decided to stay quiet

and tried to sell their treasure

to private collectors.

Eventually, they were caught.

But so far,

only 30 of the 300 coins and objects

have been recovered.

Now, here's where it gets even more amazing,

is that our very own gary drayton

has a direct tie to this story.

He has a direct experience as it relates to this story.

-Hmm. -And it happened

-right around here. -Well, as...

As only gary can tell it, I suppose, huh?

Yeah. As a matter of fact, why don't we talk to him?

-Great. Get him on. -Matty: Let's do it.

-Marty: Hey, gary. -Hey, gary.

-Marty: How are you? -How you doing, chaps?

-Good to see you, as always. -Oh. Excuse me.

Marty: Oh, what's this?

Oh, I've got an emerald stuck in my teeth.

-marty: What's that?

Pick your emerald.

-Really? -Yeah, I've been at it again, mate,

on the treasure coast.

You didn't find those emeralds

with a metal detector.

No, mate. That's using my twin optical scanners.

-marty: Hey, gary, I understand

that you have some information

on those guys in England that found those coins

but didn't turn them in. Tell us about that.

Well, like any good english treasure story,

it starts at the pub.

-I'm in the mug & anchor

having a beer,

and two guys ask for a selfie.

And so we-we start talking, and it turns out

that the guy's a rare coin dealer.

And he tells me that there's two guys,

they found a hoard of coins,

and they want to know if he wanted to buy these coins.

Well, he knew it was suspicious

so he turned the deal down.

And then he read about it in the newspaper

that these same guys

got into trouble because they hadn't declared

the whole hoard.

They're trying to sell

a certain amount of 'em privately.

And it's crazy,

because the hoard was worth millions of pounds.

I think they stood to get awarded

-probably three to five million dollars each. -Marty: Wow.

-Aw, geez. -And to cheat

for a few hundred thousand-- it's crazy.

Well gary, I really don't feel sorry for those guys, then.

That is a great scheme, and if they wanted more,

they were just getting greedy.

Yeah, but not only that, that-that stuff belongs

to the people of England.

That's what I like about the portable antiquities scheme:

The detectorist gets paid, the landowner gets paid,

and the people of England

get to see this treasure in museums.

Yeah, that's very good.

That is a brilliant law, gary, and, uh,

-remarkably consistent with human nature. -When you

-play by the rules, everybody wins. -Marty: Yeah,

when the rules are enlightened, like those.

-Rick: Absolutely. -Matty: Yeah.

-Yep, it's true. -Marty: All right, gary,

we'll be talking again. See you later.

Thanks a lot.

-Matty: See you, buddy. -Rick: Thanks, gary.

Gary: See you, mate.

Marty: Here's how it all comes together, matty.

If you look at the statistics in England,

apparently, in the last recent history,

90% of the historical artifacts that now sit in museums

so the population can see them were found by treasure hunters.

-Wow. -And that's an example

of a good policy that works.

Not archaeologists but treasure hunters.

Treasure hunters, yes. Not archaeologists.

Rick: You know, we've spoken a lot here

about principled individual behaviors

and unprincipled behaviors.

But there's a case of a treasure find

off the coast of columbia,

a ship called the san jose, and it

speaks eloquently to what happens when governments

-become unprincipled. -Marty: What it comes down to,

matty, is what we learned

as kids: Finders keepers, losers weepers--

it's not necessarily true

when it comes to treasure hunting.

Narrator: 2,000 feet beneath the waves,

off the coast of cartagena, colombia,

near a sandy spot called isla del tesoro--

treasure island--

lie the remains of a once-great spanish galleon:

The san jose.

Known as the holy grail of shipwrecks,

the galleon was sunk after a disastrous naval battle

with the british in 1708.

But what makes the san jose particularly notorious

is its cargo--

an estimated $20 billion

in gold, silver and jewels.

And, so far as anyone knows,

the vast fortune is still in the ship's watery hold.

Lee: The san jose was in panama,

loading gold brought up from the west coast

of south america,

and it was there for a very long period of time,

so it stored a lot of gold,

along with several other ship.

And they all sailed for cartagena, columbia,

at the same time.

The san jose would have carried gold.

It would have carried silver from the mines of potosí.

It would have carried emerald.

The british government was aware of this fleet...

...And engaged in a battle

which resulted in the san jose

being targeted and hit

by several shots from the british ships,

and ultimately exploded and sank.

Narrator : For nearly 300 years,

one of the largest treasure hoards ever to set sail

was lost, but never forgotten.

In 2015, maritime archaeology consultants

contracted with the colombian government

and the woods hole oceanographic institution--

the same organization

that located the remains of the titanic in 1985--

to find the wreck.

One of the men on board when the hunt began

was woods hole research engineer jeff kaeli.

An expedition of this scale is incredibly complex,

and it really comes down to having a really good team.

Our team was archaeologists.

We had researchers from woods hole,

members of the colombian government,

all bringing their specialties together

where any one of those components

by themselves wouldn't have been successful.

It really was a huge collaborative effort.

Our first mission in the summer of 2015 was successful

at finding where the san jose was not.

And then, later that year, at the end of 2015,

we had a second expedition,

which was successful in finding the san jose.

Narrator: But finding the san jose

was not the end of this treasure hunt.

It was only the beginning.

Tok thompson: So there was an interesting thing about this.

Even if we know that the treasure is there, whose is it?

Spain wants it.

Because it was a spanish galleon that sunk.

Colombia says it's theirs,

because it's in their waters.

Then again, it was taken from the incan empire.

John mattera: The colombian government,

because it's in colombian waters,

probably has the strongest claim to the wreck--

which I'm sure has the strongest claim--

they also have the biggest navy down there.

They have the biggest guns, so they make the rules.

And then you have Spain, who's saying,

"well, it was our ship. It's our gold.

We stole that fair and square."

narrator: The san jose is

one of the most sought-after sunken treasures in history.

But a protracted legal fight has, so far,

prevented those who discovered the ship's whereabouts

from recovering its precious cargo

and profiting from their labo.

Quite literally...

We're talking about billions of dollars

in... In treasure.

I really can't see any of the parties

that are going to be willing

to just throw in the towel on this.

At the same time...

More treasure, the more trouble.

Mattera: The most profitable part

of the san jose is the lawyer.

From the day after it sank,

lawyers were making money on the san jose. It's the truth.

Narrator: But there is one force that is more powerful

than any world government,

and it is even more destructive:

Mother nature.

While the fight over the san jose rages on land,

the treasure-- worth billions of dollars--

is slowly dissolving

in the warm, salty waters off the colombian coast.

Every day goes by is another day there's less of it.

It's the law of nature. It just happens.

Saltwater environment is not a conducive environment

to man-made objects.

I look at it as, we're just clearing the ocean floor

of previous man's clutter.

It doesn't belong there. Let's get it out of there.

I mean, when you see a story like that, guys,

does that give you pause

in how you proceed here, who you deal with?

Well, who we deal with, certainly.

You try, you always try and find people of integrity. I mean,

-but how do you know, you know? -Sure. Right.

Rick and I have a saying that, uh, when it comes to shysters,

-the good ones are good. -Are really good. -Yeah, yeah.

They ooze credibility, you know, so you have to be on your guard.

But, you know,

generally speaking, most people are... Bona fide.

-Yeah, they're principled. -Yeah.

And I think good karma attracts good karma, I guess.

It's one, uh, somewhat naive way to say it, but it's true.

I mean, if you behave with honor and integrity,

it draws people to you.

And I lay it at-at the feet of that principle.

Matty: Guys, what about world war ii treasures?

Have you been interested in that at all?

-Oh, my goodness. -Oh...

World war ii, you know, launched enough treasure stories

to keep anybody occupied for the rest of their lives.

I mean, treasure got pilfered all over the place

by the nazis, by the russians.

-Have you heard of the golden buddha? -I have not.

-I've heard of yamashita's gold, is it in reference to that? -It is.

It's a story that continues to unfold as we speak

and, in some cases,

truth is almost stranger than fiction with this thing.

Narrator: On September 19, 1931,

slightly more than a decade

before the attack on pearl harbor...

...The japanese imperial army invaded china.

And began a relentless campain

to strip the neighboring nation of billions of dollars

worth of diamonds and precious metals.

It was done as part of a strategic program

known as golden lily.

The japanese were largely interested

in precious metals and gems.

They wanted to change the state, so they had

to smelt it and put them

in 75 kilo bars, so 165-pound bars.

Pretty heavy to lift.

And that's how they would more easily

get them transported back.

Narrator: According to some historians,

as the second world war ended and the allies were closing in,

the japanese were desperate to find a safe place

for their enormous stash of stolen loot.

Their solution?

To hide it in the philippines,

which was then under military occupation

under the command of general tomoyuki yamashita.

Kesterson: A lot of it was still

in the philippines at that point in time,

but it was in places

that weren't as secure as they wanted.

So they pulled yamashita and said,

"your goal is to buy us enough time

"in order to get all the treasures buried

before we fall to, uh, macarthur's army."

narrator: On October 20,1944,

general douglas macarthur, the supreme commander

of the southwest pacific forces,

waded ashore at leyte, an island in the philippines

and with him came the power and might

of the u.S. Sixth army.

The end of the japanese imperial army's

reign of terror had begun.

Two years later, japanese general yamashita

was tried for war crimes and executed.

But with his death came the discomforting realization

that the location of billions of dollars

worth of gold and jewels would be forever buried with him.

For the next 25 years,

the legend of yamashita's lost treasure was a popular

subject of speculation in the philippines.

It seemed no one knew where it was.

No one, until 1971.

Rogelio roxas, or roger roxas, was a locksmith.

Uh, just a simple guy.

And near his home,

he was wandering around in the woods that he grew up in,

which happened to be state lands, he came across a tunnel

and when he went into that tunnel and explored,

he found boxes.

And in those boxes, he found gold bullion

and he found a gold buddha,

and in the buddha there was a lot of gems, different gems.

Narrator: Roger roxas' discovery quickly became big news.

But not everyone that came to see his newly-found treasure

was happy for him.

At the time of roxas' discovery,

the philippines was ruled by ferdinand marcos--

-a ruthless dictator. -Kesterson: When marcos

found out that he had this treasure,

including the golden buddha,

within a week, marcos sends in

his team of thugs.

Narrator: Compelled by greed,

marcos imprisoned and tortured roxas.

The golden buddha and more than a dozen gold bars

were confiscated.

But what marcos really wanted was for roxas to reveal

exactly where he found the golden buddha.

Months and then years went by.

Repeatedly, roxas would be released from prison

only to be brought back in and tortured

until he would reveal

the golden buddha's original hiding place.

Eventually, marcos got the information

he was looking for.

To me, it's clear that in marcos' life

that he had a penchant for this gold.

Had to keep it secret

and I believe that his wealth

is predominantly based on these gold finds

and converting it into a dollar value

in whatever banks he keeps it in.

Narrator: But the bitter fight

between roxas and marcos didn't end there.

After the dictator lost power in 1986,

roxas slapped marcos with a lawsuit

in order to recover what was left of his treasure.

The golden buddha corporation,

which was rogelio roxas' corporation,

uh, won the lawsuit.

The total value that was awarded to him

was $22 billion,

which at that point in time was the largest judgment

ever rendered in the united states.

Narrator: Of course, that would seem to be the very

happy ending to a very bizarre story.

But, unfortunately, it wasn't,

as roger roxas had died just

as the trial was about to start.

To make matters worse, not even his heirs

would get to collect on the judgment,

as the court later overturned the compensation award

on the grounds that the value of the recovered treasure

was virtually impossible to properly calculate.

But even so,

the story still doesn't end there.

Although the place where roxas found the golden buddha

remains unknown, several other places where general yamashita

hid his vast treasure have been found.

Kesterson: It's impossible to put a price on the treasure.

What marcos alone had recovered at one point in time

was estimated to be $100 billion.

There are still a lot of sites to be recovered.

So people are still out there,

every day looking for gold in the philippines.

And the search continues on to this day.

Matty: There's so many lessons in all these

stories that we've been talking about.

They-they all seem to be ending up in the court, somehow.

They all seem to be a bit of a mess.

And, you know, I-I didn't ask you--

what did happen to bobby pritchett?

Where does he stand right now?

Can he get his hands on his treasure?

You want to talk about a mess-- no, he's got nothing.

His investors have gotten nothing.

He's pretty, well, sort of broken, in a sense.

I mean, certainly in a financial sense.

He lost his boats, um, all of them.

-Wow. -And, uh, he's got nothing.

Well, he lost the ability to do what he loves doing.

-Yeah... Yeah. -That's really the key.

There's still a story component to this.

And I am dismayed by the fact that

that story currently resides at the bottom of the ocean.

-The story remains untold, and that always bothers me. -Yeah.

Rick: Right? It's a rich story.

You know it better than I.

Part of it's not told-- it's still covered in sand.

-Exactly. -But we know

that there's some really important

historical artifacts on that shipwreck,

regardless of who prevails

-and whose ship it was, -right.

-There's some real history and it should be revealed. -Matty: Yeah.

That alone could change what we know

about the history of florida, for example.

-Yes. -Might change the history books, literally.

-Yeah. -And it's just sitting there.

You'd think the archeologists would be all over that.

-Right? -Marty: yeah.

I want to comment on one thing about oak island that you said.

You know, "does it give us pause?"

it... Yes, it gives us pause

in one sense, because,

you know, there's a lot of money been spent on oak island

and if we end up getting nothing or just

a big fight when we actually make a find,

that's-that's an upsetting thought.

Rick: And the truth is I don't think

that if that were to happen--

we make a great find of "treasure"--

I will sit in this chair until I am nothing but dust

and believe that there's a way to reach a compromise

-with this. -Yeah.

I think the government here in canada has been great.

-Absolutely. -We've got, um, you know,

I mean, they're-they're tough.

But overall, very cooperative.

I've always said that we are stewards of a great mystery

less than owners of a mysterious island.

And, uh, I'll go to my grave thinking

that that's an important facet of this.

It's not just the treasure hunt, it's a storytelling hunt.

And I think it's very, very important, and I think if

these other treasure hunts focused a little bit more

on that than on actual treasure retrieval,

I think all parties would be better for it.

Marty: There's a lot of stories out there.

And precious few where the successful treasure hunter

became wealthy and happy.

There's a lot that are just the opposite.

Wow. That's real sad.

But it mustn't keep you from moving forward.

Marty: Amen.

Rick: Either with our shields

or dead upon them.

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