Engineer who found legendary “Ship of Gold” treasure never revealed the location of hundreds of coins
A U.S. deep-sea treasure hunter who discovered one of the most famous shipwrecks in American history has been released from prison after spending nearly a decade behind bars for refusing to reveal the location of hundreds of missing gold coins.
Tommy Thompson, 73, became famous in 1988 after locating the wreck of the SS Central America — a 19th-century vessel known as the “Ship of Gold.”
But his spectacular discovery later turned into a long legal battle with investors who accused him of hiding profits from the treasure.
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Legendary shipwreck discovery
The SS Central America sank in 1857 during a hurricane off the coast of the United States while carrying a massive shipment of gold from California.
The ship had been transporting around 30,000 pounds of newly minted gold from San Francisco to banks on the East Coast when it went down.
More than 425 passengers and crew members died, and the loss of the gold shipment helped trigger the economic turmoil known as the Panic of 1857.
The wreck lay nearly 7,000 feet below the ocean surface for more than a century before Thompson and his expedition team finally located it in 1988 after years of searching.
Millions recovered from the ocean floor
At the time, Thompson was working as an engineer at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio.
His expedition eventually recovered thousands of gold bars and coins from the seabed, making it one of the most valuable shipwreck recoveries in U.S. history.
Many of the artifacts were later sold in 2000 for around $50 million.
However, a later criminal complaint suggested that the total value of the gold recovered from the wreck could be as high as $400 million.
Investors claim they were cheated
The expedition had been financed by 161 investors, who together provided about $12.7 million to fund the search for the shipwreck.
They were promised a share of the treasure recovered from the seabed.
But years passed without many investors receiving any returns from the discovery.
In 2005, a group of investors filed a lawsuit accusing Thompson of withholding profits and failing to share proceeds from the sale of the treasure.
Years on the run
As legal pressure mounted, Thompson disappeared in 2012 after failing to appear in court.
Authorities spent several years searching for him before he and an associate were eventually arrested in 2015 in Boca Raton, Florida.
Investigators discovered that Thompson and his partner had been living quietly in a hotel for two years, paying cash for their room under a false name and avoiding attention by relying on taxis and public transportation.
Prison over missing coins
After his arrest, Thompson was jailed for criminal contempt and later held in civil contempt for refusing to answer questions about roughly 500 gold coins that remained missing from the shipwreck recovery.
Civil contempt sentences can continue indefinitely until a defendant complies with a court order — in this case, revealing the location of the missing treasure.
Despite years of legal pressure, Thompson repeatedly insisted that the coins had been placed in a trust in Belize.
He also claimed that much of the money from earlier treasure sales had been consumed by legal costs and loan repayments.
Judge ends contempt sentence
After nearly ten years behind bars, a judge recently ordered Thompson’s release.
The court concluded that further imprisonment was unlikely to force him to disclose the coins’ whereabouts.
Because civil contempt is intended to pressure someone into complying with a court order, the judge ruled that continuing to hold him would serve little purpose if he remained unwilling or unable to provide answers.
Mystery remains unsolved
Although Thompson is now free, the mystery surrounding the 500 missing gold coins remains unresolved.
Some investors continue to argue that large portions of the treasure recovered from the wreck have never been fully accounted for.
The case has become one of the most unusual legal sagas connected to a shipwreck discovery — a story involving a legendary lost treasure, a decade-long prison sentence and a fortune in gold that may still be hidden somewhere.
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Adapted by ASEAN Now · Source · 14.March 2026