James Burke was the mastermind behind the Luthansa Heist, later used as a plot in “GoodFellas.” (FBI photo)
(AP)
The Rosebud egg sold as part of a set for $100 million in 2004. But eight Fabergé eggs are still missing. (New York Post)
The Rosebud egg (above right) sold as part of a set for $100 million in 2004. But eight Fabergé eggs are still missing. (
)
If the programming lineup of the History and Discovery channels show us anything, it’s that Americans love a good treasure hunt (almost as much as handfishing).
Wall Street windfalls come and go, but how often do we hear stories like the true-life tale of the S.S. Port Nicholson, a sunken World War II vessel recently found off Cape Cod. A group has spent $6 million finding and exploring the wreck, which they believe holds as much as $5 billion in platinum bars. They are so far mum on what, if anything, they’ve found.
So if you’re sick of the 9 to 5, there are plenty of lost fortunes to get armchair Indiana Joneses’ hearts pumping. Here, 10 treasures for which adventurers are still searching.
The Lufthansa Heist
An infamous robbery took place at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport in 1978, netting its perpetrators $5 million in cash (more than $17 million in today’s dollars) and millions more in precious collectibles. Thanks to a tip-off from an airport worker, a crew partly comprised of Mafia operatives was able to make off with huge sums of cash from monetary exchanges in Germany used by servicemen.
The job marked the biggest heist in US history and inspired more than one screen treatment, including a plot thread in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mobster classic “GoodFellas.”
When police identified one of the getaway vehicles, it was only a matter of time before arrests were made and fugitives started getting anxious. The subsequent killing of several men involved with the heist has been attributed to ringleader and Lucchese crime family figure Jimmy Burke. But despite the high-profile nature of the case and the litany of participants and informants, the princely haul of cash and jewelry was never recovered. There are theories that Burke buried at least some of it — but if so, the secret went to his grave. He died in prison in 1996.
Missing Fabergé Eggs
The ornate, bejeweled Fabergé eggs are recognized around the globe as an iconic symbol of opulence. By commission of Tsar Alexander III, they were created by French-descended Russian craftsmen Peter and Agathon Fabergé in the late 19th and early 20th century. When Russia’s historic House of Fabergé was raided by the Bolsheviks in 1918, the resulting chaos relegated some of these priceless artifacts to the Kremlin. Others were sold off to raise money for the new socialist regime.
Over time, the eggs have been scattered to various corners of Europe and beyond. Of the 52 eggs from the original Imperial collection, eight are still missing. Those yet to be recovered include the original Hen Egg, the Alexander III Commemorative Egg and the Cherub with Chariot Egg — each worth millions.
The Crown Jewels of Ireland
A Guinness T-shirt makes a nice souvenir, but those in search of a more memorable Irish artifact might instead try to recover Ireland’s long-lost crown jewels, which have been MIA since 1907. Made up of a diamond badge and other precious stones that comprised the insignia of the Order of St. Patrick, the jewels are said to have been stolen from a safe inside Dublin Castle. At the time of their theft, the jewels were valued at $250,000. Today, adjusted purely for inflation with no regard for their historic import, their value would run closer to $6 million.
In the immediate wake of the jewels’ disappearance, blame fell mainly to Sir Arthur Vicars, the appointed Ulster King of Arms who’d been entrusted with keeping them secure.
Vicars was prone to heavy drinking and that he was once seen with jewels hanging around his neck after waking from an overnight bender. Whether this was a drunken foible or a trial run for the actual theft, it certainly doesn’t help to diminish his status as a prime suspect.
Vicars maintained his innocence but was nonetheless relieved of his duty and later killed by the IRA. The jewels were never found, and there are surprisingly few theories as to where they ended up.
The Amber Room
Good luck fitting this one-of-a-kind artifact into a pirate’s chest. Originally built in 18th-century Russia, the Amber Room was a beautifully ornate chamber in the palace of Tsar Peter the Great, bedecked in luminous panels of amber and gold leaf. When Nazis invaded St. Petersburg in 1941, the Russians tried to hide the prized panels behind wallpaper. Alas, the ruse failed and the room was disassembled and moved to Königsberg, Germany, where Adolf Hitler planned to create a museum filled with ill-gotten artwork and cultural treasures.
What became of the Amber Room after World War II is hard to say. Some experts think it might have been accidentally destroyed in the course of allied bombings. In 1997, a mosaic surfaced that owners said was from the storied room, and in 2006, a team of American treasure hunters invested heavily in an unsuccessful quest to find original amber panels at the bottom of an Austrian lake. A replicated version of the room now can be found in St. Petersburg, but its value falls well short of the original, which today could be worth as much as $500 million.
The Lost Skulls
of
Peking Man
In the 1920s, scientists in China were thrilled to discover a number of fossilized skulls that provided remarkable insights into early hominid development. At the time, these specimens of the Homo erectus pekinensis — aka “Peking Man” — were the oldest and most valuable archaeological finds of their kind.
By the early 1940s, as China found itself at war with Japan, the keepers of the skulls decided to ship them overseas to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. They were packed into crates and prepared for shipment to the US, but no one ever received them.
It’s hard to put a cash value on scientific specimens like these, but their lasting importance as a tangible steppingstone in human evolution make them a potentially monumental find, even today. Whether the crates ever made it out of China, let alone across the Pacific, isn’t clear. Some speculate that the skulls may have even sunk with the Japanese ocean liner Awa Maru, which was negligently torpedoed by a US submarine in 1945. It’s not your everyday missing treasure, but priceless just the same.
The Great Treasure of Lima
In the early 19th century, a Spanish viceroy who lorded over Lima, Peru, brokered a deal with a British sailor named William Thompson to haul millions of dollars worth of treasure. As political tension pushed Lima toward a full-on revolt, the viceroy asked Thompson to load the precious gold, jewels and artifacts onto his ship and keep them a safe distance from Peruvian rebels. But after the goods were loaded, Thompson and his crewmen went rogue, killed the Spanish guards and reportedly buried the treasure on Cocos Island, just off the coast of what is now Costa Rica.
Thompson was soon caught by the Spaniards and promised to lead them to the secret cache. Instead, he fled as soon as his feet hit the beach and was never seen on Cocos Island again. If the treasure’s still there, its worth could be in the hundreds of millions, which explains why hundreds of fortune seekers have tried to locate it for years.
Antwerp Diamond
Center Heist
In 2003, a bold and skillful group of Italian thieves pulled off one of the biggest jewel heists in modern history. Led by convicted ringleader Leonardo Notarbartolo, the crew penetrated a high-security vault beneath Belgium’s Antwerp Diamond Center and made off with an estimated 100 million Euros in gemstones, gold and assorted valuables. Their big score sounds like the stuff of an “Ocean’s Eleven” caper — in fact, J.J. Abrams has been attached to a movie based on the job — but it was hardly a Hollywood ending for Notarbartolo and four of his cronies, who wound up behind bars after the sloppy disposal of some incriminating trash led authorities right to their door.
While Belgian officials were happy to make the arrests, the loot itself was never recovered. What’s more, Notarbartolo claims another member of the crew remains at-large, though he refuses to provide any details on the whereabouts of the mystery man or the diamonds. With his prison sentence set to expire in 2013, time may be running out for opportunists looking to swoop in and snatch the missing gems, which some suggest could be hidden in the Italian Alps.
The Lost Jewels
of King John
It was bad timing, not bad security, that caused King John of England to lose a priceless collection of jewels back in the early 13th century. John is characterized by historians as an avid collector of jewelry and fine clothing, so he was surely devastated when a wagon train carrying many of his most precious artifacts was swept into the sea by rising tides while crossing an estuary on England’s east coast known as The Wash. The king died days later, and over the next 800 years, every attempt to retrieve the loot was met with failure.
In 2011, treasure buffs caught an unlikely break when a ferry passenger near the English town of Lynn accidentally discovered what archaeologists say is a piece from John’s long-lost trove. It seems centuries of drainage and changes to the coastline may have sent the treasure creeping inland. Authorities now say the bulk of his loot most likely lies under the soil beneath the town’s Custom House, sparking a campaign to dismantle the building and recover it. While it seems a shame to demolish a perfectly lovely British statehouse, the promise of a royal find worth tens of millions of pounds is certainly a motivator.
Confederate Gold
When President Jefferson Davis recognized the imminent defeat of his Confederacy in 1865, he set about gathering, transporting and hiding loads of money and valuables. Gold and silver coins were moved by train and by wagon throughout the South, often buried in secret caches that southern loyalists planned to reclaim at a later date. An additional hoard of Mexican silver dollars packed into 39 wooden kegs is said to be buried somewhere in Danville, Va.
The total amount of hidden Confederate loot may amount to as much as $19 million in present-day US funds.
Seeking and finding Confederate coins is a less compelling kind of treasure hunt when you compare it to quests for medieval artifacts and pirate plunder. Though the sum of all hidden rebel gold may be substantial, it’s unlikely that any one mother lode exists in some underground fortress in South Carolina or Georgia.
Instead, smaller stashes have been found in manor homes, buried in forests and marked by elaborate codes that only Confederate insiders were meant to understand.
The Treasure of
the Flor de la Mar
The Flor de la Mar was a Portuguese frigate that was deployed in several battles in the early 16th century. Following a victorious battle at Malacca, the vessel was loaded down with a wealth of precious gems and artifacts to be delivered back to Portugal’s King Manuel. As fate would have it, the ship encountered a storm and sank.
Historians and treasure hunters have debated about the precise location of the wreck and the likelihood that any of its valuable cargo could ever be retrieved, even using modern-day technology. Those looking for a reason to keep up the search need only consider that the value of the treasure has been estimated in the billions. Indeed, it’s been hailed as the biggest and most sought-after seaborne treasure in history.