Treasure hunter received a 'bitter end' for not revealing the position of 500 gold coins

This may sound like the plot of an '80s adventure movie, but it's the real life of oceanographer Tommy Thompson.

Accordingly, "treasure hunter" Tommy Thompson refused to disclose where the ancient gold coins were, so he has been imprisoned for the past 6 years to serve the investigation.

The strange story begins in 1857. The SS Central American ship, known as the golden ship, sank off the coast of South Carolina in 1857. The incident killed 425 people, 10 tons of gold fell to the bottom of the ocean. positive.

By 1980, Tommy Thompson was an oceanographer who persuaded a few friends, colleagues, and supporters to raise money for him to carry out dredging of the seabed to find spoils.

Tommy Thompson created an underwater robot, named Nemo, to carry out a search for treasure on the seabed. This man has attracted a lot of attention and a large company spends $12.7 million to fund the plan.

The SS Central American ship sank in 1857.

With the funding, Tommy Thompson spent a fortune to create a specialized ocean exploration outfit called Recovery Limited for the purpose of finding treasure.

After a period of searching, Tommy Thompson and his team found the wreckage of the SS Central America at a depth of about 2,400 meters. Then they also discovered a treasure containing a lot of gold in 1988.

The treasure, estimated to be worth around $300 million, is one of the largest ever in the United States. Most of the gold found was sold in 2000 for about $50 million.

A piece of gold that Tommy Thompson's team found.

However, among the old Tommy Thompson supporters, there were two who did not receive any of the money he collected according to his previous promises. Those two decided to sue Tommy Thompson.

He and his assistant Alison Antekeie had been on the run since 2012 but were later arrested at a Hilton hotel in West Boca Raton in 2015. In 2012, during a court hearing but Tommy Thompson's absence, he was arrested. sentenced to 2 years in prison and a fine of 250,000 USD.

Up to now, although the prison term has been released, the case has not ended, Tommy Thompson is still in prison. The reason for this strangeness is because he refused to reveal the location of about 500 gold coins, the rest of the treasure.

Speaking at a hearing in 2020, 69-year-old Tommy Thompson said: "I don't remember where the rest of the gold is. I feel like I don't hold the key to my freedom."