Treasure hunter ‘who never revealed stash of gold coins’ freed after decade behind bars

A treasure hunter who spent a decade in jail for stubbornly refusing to reveal the location of 500 missing gold coins has been released.

Tommy Thompson, 73, was freed at the start of this month after a judge said he was unlikely to ever disclose the coins’ location, according to CBS News.

Despite his release, the 73-year-old former scientist faces one year of supervised release and must pay £189,000 in fines.

Representative Abraham Hamadeh, Republican of Arizona, advocated for Thompson’s release, and told the New York Times: ‘I am glad he is finally a free man.’

Thompson’s jailing came in 2015 and after years of legal wrangling over the location, value, and ownership of the coins and recovered treasure.

It centres on a treasure hunt Thompson launched in the 1980s to discover the wreck of the SS Central America, also known as the Ship of Gold.

The steamship sank in a hurricane in 1857, killing its 450 passengers and leaving 30,000lbs of gold coins, bars, and nuggets sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

Thompson managed to convince around 250 investors to give him £9.4m to fund the search on the understanding that they would see returns if the treasure was found.

They received nothing despite Thompson and his crew discovering the wreck sitting 7,000 feet below sea level off the coast of South Carolina in 1988.

The team recovered around two tonnes of gold. The ship’s entire treasure trove is estimated to be as high as £1bn and much of it remains on the sea floor.

Most of what was recovered was sold to a gold marketing group in 2000 for around £38m.

The coins were made from recovered gold bars and pressed using a 19th-century machine from the San Francisco Mint.

Thompson claimed they were part of his share of the payment and turned them over to a trust in Belize in around 2009. He has repeatedly said he has no idea where they are now.

He also claimed the profits from the sale of the first batch of gold went mostly towards legal fees and bank loans, according to CBS News.

Many investors didn’t agree with his claims and began suing him in 2005.

A criminal case was later launched, claiming that gold bars and coins recovered from the wreck were worth up to £300m.

As the cases progressed, Thompson disappeared with his close associate Alison Antekeier in 2012 shortly before he was due to appear before a judge.

They were arrested in 2015 in Boca Raton, Florida where officers discovered £321,000 in cash in their hotel room. It was later confiscated.

Court stories at the time revealed they had been staying in hotels for two years, paying cash for their room under a false name, and using taxis and public transport to avoid detection.

Thompson was subsequently jailed after being held in contempt for refusing to answer questions about the missing coins’ location and for failing to appear before a judge.

Civil contempt prison sentences are usually indefinite but Thompson’s contempt order was dropped in 2024.

He had to serve a further two years for the initial charge of failing to appear before the judge, delaying his release until earlier this month.

The Justice Department in the Southern District of Ohio, which had pushed for Thompson’s continued incarceration, has yet to comment.

Lawyers for the Dispatch Printing Company, who initially sued Thompson over collecting part of their investment, have not commented either.

It remains to been seen if the coins will ever be discovered, but Thompson’s aptly-named lawyer Keith Golden insisted: ‘Every last piece of gold dust was accounted for.’

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