Taken from
http://www.usagold.com/cpmForum/archives/2220002/default.html
**************
ORO (02/22/00; 09:01:15MDT - Msg ID:25821)
Marcos Gold - true or not? - how true?
The estimates of the Yamashita pillage were of some 9,000 Tonnes of gold equivalent at the end of the war.
Hearings on the matter have been conducted in the US congress and in the Phillipines legislature. Some of the evidence presented by some witnesses is completely absurd, one claiming that 400,000 Tonnes of gold were taken by the Japanese.
The historic accounts that indicate official gold payments by the occupied peoples to the Japanese occupiers are on the order of 70-150 tonnes per city per levy - sometimes levied more often than once per year. In a 9 year occupation in China alone this would be easilly in the 5000 tonne area.
Once the opium monopoly and the gambling monopolies operated by the Japanese military are considered - which took payments in gold and silver only - are considered, there can be another 6,000 tonnes just from that source.
Point is, that estimates of ancient gold mining in Asia are not good because of a lack of records spanning back to those times, and because of a lack of useful information about the mines themselves. That leaves only estimates of gold used in trade and as wealth money. Since the Asians of the time before WWII - wealthy or poor - had no use for banks, there are no useful records openly available for the determination of the quantities of gold held in these parts.
I can't say a thing as to the authenticity of the documentation I have pointed you to. However, any calculation I have done to understand the quantitative aspects of the gold market in the period 1980-1992 comes up with a deficit of at least 12,000 tonnes. Meaning that at the very least, 12,000 tonnes came into the markets beyond the quantities reported by any WGC estimate, Veneroso's estimates, or any other widely accepted figure. The more likely figure I have calculated as the deficit for that period was on the order of 25-30,000 tonnes.
If any of the gold sales and deposit certificates posted on the net have any merit, then they provide an explanation of a source for the gold that filled the deficit.
For any disparaging the documentation I would just say that you are calling these people forgers. These people are disinterested in the particular amounts they show in the documents, they are not trying to claim these quantities for themselves. There is little to be had by forging these documents by those presenting the information.
The 1240 tonnes at the Zurich airport that were frozen pending court decisions on law suits should make it obvious to the doubters that at the very least, ten times that amount is still in the hands of the Marcos heirs and at the very least ten times that figure was sold in the past.
Still, verification of the circulation of rumors of the Marcos gold sales by people active in the London gold markets of the 1981-1987 period would be very helpful in determining an order of magnitude figure on the numbers this documentation indicates.
Dec 27, 2008
SKELETONS FOUND IN UNDERGROUND TUNNEL - (2001)
SKELETONS FOUND IN UNDERGROUND TUNNEL
By Cloe Diaz, staff writer Mindanao Free Press.
June 24, 2001
Yamashita Treasures hunter shockingly discovered what appear to be 30 skeletons of Japanese soldiers from WWII in a section of tunnel some 125 feet underground in an excavation in the outskirts of Tugbok district, located in the southern part of Davao.
Mario (his last name withheld upon his request) found the skeletons after digging through a section of tunnel that was filled with rubble. It had apparently been blown shut by the Japanese in order to seal it. Once he had cleared way the rubble he followed the tunnel about 10 meters were he descended a cemented stairway (stair way) to a large room. He was shocked to find human skeletons sprawled all over the tunnel. There were rusty helmets, rifles, bayonets and tattered uniforms to prove that these skeletons were those of Japanese soldiers who were entombed alive. Just beyond this room, the tunnel runs for about 30 meters northeast where is again blocked by another rubble heap.
Mario, who has been a treasure hunter for 15 years, said that he had never seen anything like this before. The tunnel was under the 5-hectare excavation site he and his team has been working on for almost 5-years. It was said that the site is one of the main burial grounds of the Japanese soldiers of their looted items during WWII. He and his team were able to successfully recover a few small caches of gold and jewelries during the first few months of excavation but Mario claims that they were just decoy deposits, meaning they were placed in shallow tunnels or holes to divert one’s (ones) attention away from the main cache or the larger amount of treasure. Thus they decided to dig further. That was when they discovered more markers that eventually led them laterally through a labyrinth of tunnels, bypassing booby traps, then down through a series of rooms. They have dug down to 225 feet from the surface where they continue to dig in a large water filled room. Mario said that he had one team of workers back up at the 125 level working on a small side tunnel when they (thy) discovered the skeletons.
Furthermore, Mario believes that he is very close to a large cache of buried gold. Now that there were skeletons discovered in the area, it made him even more certain that the treasure that he had been looking for is now within his reach as these skeletons are a marker in themselves.
Word spread fast about the many skeletons and soon the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Region XI arrived to investigate (investigating.) A team of forensic experts from Manila arrived and gathered up all the skeletons for evaluation. Their preliminary investigation did confirm that these skeletons were Japanese from the war. Once they render their final report, the bones will be given to the Japanese embassy that has already been notified.
After being halted for almost 60 days while the NBI conducted an investigation, Mario is once again removing rubble from the tunnel, one wheelbarrow, one basket at a time. Knowing that just around the next bend of tunnel or behind the next rubble pile he will find a large cache of gold!
By Cloe Diaz, staff writer Mindanao Free Press.
June 24, 2001
Yamashita Treasures hunter shockingly discovered what appear to be 30 skeletons of Japanese soldiers from WWII in a section of tunnel some 125 feet underground in an excavation in the outskirts of Tugbok district, located in the southern part of Davao.
Mario (his last name withheld upon his request) found the skeletons after digging through a section of tunnel that was filled with rubble. It had apparently been blown shut by the Japanese in order to seal it. Once he had cleared way the rubble he followed the tunnel about 10 meters were he descended a cemented stairway (stair way) to a large room. He was shocked to find human skeletons sprawled all over the tunnel. There were rusty helmets, rifles, bayonets and tattered uniforms to prove that these skeletons were those of Japanese soldiers who were entombed alive. Just beyond this room, the tunnel runs for about 30 meters northeast where is again blocked by another rubble heap.
Mario, who has been a treasure hunter for 15 years, said that he had never seen anything like this before. The tunnel was under the 5-hectare excavation site he and his team has been working on for almost 5-years. It was said that the site is one of the main burial grounds of the Japanese soldiers of their looted items during WWII. He and his team were able to successfully recover a few small caches of gold and jewelries during the first few months of excavation but Mario claims that they were just decoy deposits, meaning they were placed in shallow tunnels or holes to divert one’s (ones) attention away from the main cache or the larger amount of treasure. Thus they decided to dig further. That was when they discovered more markers that eventually led them laterally through a labyrinth of tunnels, bypassing booby traps, then down through a series of rooms. They have dug down to 225 feet from the surface where they continue to dig in a large water filled room. Mario said that he had one team of workers back up at the 125 level working on a small side tunnel when they (thy) discovered the skeletons.
Furthermore, Mario believes that he is very close to a large cache of buried gold. Now that there were skeletons discovered in the area, it made him even more certain that the treasure that he had been looking for is now within his reach as these skeletons are a marker in themselves.
Word spread fast about the many skeletons and soon the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Region XI arrived to investigate (investigating.) A team of forensic experts from Manila arrived and gathered up all the skeletons for evaluation. Their preliminary investigation did confirm that these skeletons were Japanese from the war. Once they render their final report, the bones will be given to the Japanese embassy that has already been notified.
After being halted for almost 60 days while the NBI conducted an investigation, Mario is once again removing rubble from the tunnel, one wheelbarrow, one basket at a time. Knowing that just around the next bend of tunnel or behind the next rubble pile he will find a large cache of gold!
Dec 19, 2008
A Gold Bounty to Shiver the Timbers
Archive for Saturday, April 10, 1999
A Gold Bounty to Shiver the Timbers
By Michael Luo
April 10, 1999 in print edition B-1
Inside a nondescript building in a nondescript office park in Santa Ana sits a long-lost treasure. More than 1,000 coins, each about the size of a half-dollar but with the heft of pure gold, are being scrutinized by experts in a basement room guarded by three locked doors and a bevy of security officers.
The booty comes from the Brother Jonathan, a Gold Rush-era paddle wheel boat that sank a few miles off Crescent City in 1865. More than 140 passengers perished in one of the costliest shipping disasters in American history.
The ship sat undisturbed until divers from Deep Sea Research began trying to raise its buried treasure in 1993.
Now, after a protracted legal struggle over who has rights to the gold coins, valued conservatively at $5 million to $10 million, the divers–plunderers, to critics–are reaping their reward.
The job of counting treasure may conjure images of one-eyed pirates biting on doubloons, but judging the condition of these coins is purely clinical: Employees of Professional Coin Grading Service in Santa Ana, the largest rare-coin grading service in the world, use magnifying glasses and expert eyes.
They assess a range of factors, including each coin’s brightness and scratches on its face, before assigning a numeric value between 1 and 70. Any grade above 60 is considered mint. The vast majority of the 1,006 pieces left to Deep Sea Research by a federal court have been found to meet this standard despite years spent 250 feet below the ocean’s surface.
“It’s as if you transported yourself back in time, went to a bank and scooped up a bunch of new coins,” said David Bowers, chairman of Bowers and Marena Inc., a New Hampshire-based company that will handle the auctioning of the coins.
Divers recovered 1,207 gold coins from the wreck. Of those, a court awarded 200 to the state of California. Another coin, encrusted in coral, was donated to a museum in Crescent City. The rest were awarded to Deep Sea Research and will be sold at auction May 29 in Los Angeles, an event expected to draw collectors from around the world.
As part of their court settlement, Deep Sea Research divers received permission to return to the wreck to hunt for more gold. They plan to go back in August.
Meanwhile, half a dozen coin graders, sharing a cramped room in the building’s basement, have been examining the Brother Jonathan haul.
They study the coins underneath the glare of bright lamps positioned at each workstation, with reference manuals in hand.
The process of assessing the coins and then sealing them in heavy plastic goes fairly quickly, they said.
“After doing a few million coins, it gets easier over time,” said Rick Montgomery, president of the grading company, who examined each of the coins in the Brother Jonathan haul.
Most of the coin graders were collectors before joining the company. Grading the thousands of coins that come through every year is simply an extension of their hobby, they say.
Even they were stunned by the Brother Jonathan coins.
“These are almost unheard of in this condition and in this quantity,” Montgomery said. “It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”
*
Several hundred of the coins are pristine $20 coins struck in the San Francisco mint in 1865. Previously, only a handful of such coins existed in the world and were worth about $20,000 each.
One of the recovered coins is an 1865 $10 coin that mistakenly had its date punched upside down. The error was recognized and a correction was punched over it. The rare mistake makes it worth somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000.
Their watery grave acted like a time capsule for the coins, perfectly preserving them for collectors. Had the Brother Jonathan not been caught in rough weather and smashed into a hidden rock, the coins would have undoubtedly been spent and, subsequently, lost, Montgomery said.
Gold coins, which were the currency of choice in California during the heady Gold Rush days, were phased out of nationwide use in 1933, when they were called in and melted down.
The coins will now be taken by armored truck and plane to the Bowers and Marena headquarters in Wolfeboro, N.H., for cataloging, before returning to Los Angeles.
A 400-page book on the saga of the ill-fated ship, published by Bowers and Marena, is scheduled to hit bookstores next week.
The auction will serve as vindication for divers who participated in the arduous recovery operation and subsequent court battle, as well as those who supported them. But they don’t expect the profits to make them rich.
“We’ve spent so much time and money through the court system and in the recovery operation,” said Harvey Harrington, director of offshore operations for Deep Sea Research and the man who first saw the coins on the ocean floor four years ago. “There will be enough to go around, but nobody will be millionaires.”
source:
http://articles.latimes.com/1999/apr/10/local/me-25973
A Gold Bounty to Shiver the Timbers
By Michael Luo
April 10, 1999 in print edition B-1
Inside a nondescript building in a nondescript office park in Santa Ana sits a long-lost treasure. More than 1,000 coins, each about the size of a half-dollar but with the heft of pure gold, are being scrutinized by experts in a basement room guarded by three locked doors and a bevy of security officers.
The booty comes from the Brother Jonathan, a Gold Rush-era paddle wheel boat that sank a few miles off Crescent City in 1865. More than 140 passengers perished in one of the costliest shipping disasters in American history.
The ship sat undisturbed until divers from Deep Sea Research began trying to raise its buried treasure in 1993.
Now, after a protracted legal struggle over who has rights to the gold coins, valued conservatively at $5 million to $10 million, the divers–plunderers, to critics–are reaping their reward.
The job of counting treasure may conjure images of one-eyed pirates biting on doubloons, but judging the condition of these coins is purely clinical: Employees of Professional Coin Grading Service in Santa Ana, the largest rare-coin grading service in the world, use magnifying glasses and expert eyes.
They assess a range of factors, including each coin’s brightness and scratches on its face, before assigning a numeric value between 1 and 70. Any grade above 60 is considered mint. The vast majority of the 1,006 pieces left to Deep Sea Research by a federal court have been found to meet this standard despite years spent 250 feet below the ocean’s surface.
“It’s as if you transported yourself back in time, went to a bank and scooped up a bunch of new coins,” said David Bowers, chairman of Bowers and Marena Inc., a New Hampshire-based company that will handle the auctioning of the coins.
Divers recovered 1,207 gold coins from the wreck. Of those, a court awarded 200 to the state of California. Another coin, encrusted in coral, was donated to a museum in Crescent City. The rest were awarded to Deep Sea Research and will be sold at auction May 29 in Los Angeles, an event expected to draw collectors from around the world.
As part of their court settlement, Deep Sea Research divers received permission to return to the wreck to hunt for more gold. They plan to go back in August.
Meanwhile, half a dozen coin graders, sharing a cramped room in the building’s basement, have been examining the Brother Jonathan haul.
They study the coins underneath the glare of bright lamps positioned at each workstation, with reference manuals in hand.
The process of assessing the coins and then sealing them in heavy plastic goes fairly quickly, they said.
“After doing a few million coins, it gets easier over time,” said Rick Montgomery, president of the grading company, who examined each of the coins in the Brother Jonathan haul.
Most of the coin graders were collectors before joining the company. Grading the thousands of coins that come through every year is simply an extension of their hobby, they say.
Even they were stunned by the Brother Jonathan coins.
“These are almost unheard of in this condition and in this quantity,” Montgomery said. “It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”
*
Several hundred of the coins are pristine $20 coins struck in the San Francisco mint in 1865. Previously, only a handful of such coins existed in the world and were worth about $20,000 each.
One of the recovered coins is an 1865 $10 coin that mistakenly had its date punched upside down. The error was recognized and a correction was punched over it. The rare mistake makes it worth somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000.
Their watery grave acted like a time capsule for the coins, perfectly preserving them for collectors. Had the Brother Jonathan not been caught in rough weather and smashed into a hidden rock, the coins would have undoubtedly been spent and, subsequently, lost, Montgomery said.
Gold coins, which were the currency of choice in California during the heady Gold Rush days, were phased out of nationwide use in 1933, when they were called in and melted down.
The coins will now be taken by armored truck and plane to the Bowers and Marena headquarters in Wolfeboro, N.H., for cataloging, before returning to Los Angeles.
A 400-page book on the saga of the ill-fated ship, published by Bowers and Marena, is scheduled to hit bookstores next week.
The auction will serve as vindication for divers who participated in the arduous recovery operation and subsequent court battle, as well as those who supported them. But they don’t expect the profits to make them rich.
“We’ve spent so much time and money through the court system and in the recovery operation,” said Harvey Harrington, director of offshore operations for Deep Sea Research and the man who first saw the coins on the ocean floor four years ago. “There will be enough to go around, but nobody will be millionaires.”
source:
http://articles.latimes.com/1999/apr/10/local/me-25973
Dec 18, 2008
ANOTHER TREASURE FIND IN THE PHILIPPINES!
A Testimonial of a successful TH hit posted in Accurate Locators web site.
***************
Artifact Treasure Hunting in the Philippines
ANOTHER TREASURE FIND IN THE PHILIPPINES!
Dear Accurate Locators,
I thought you might find the enclosed story interesting! I have included pictures for your review. All I ask as agreed please do not give out names, places or any other personal information. First let me say we are very pleased with the results of the Pin Pointer Pro and to further thank you for your professional support before and after the purchase. There is so much technology on the internet and they all claim to be the best. We did our due diligence and decided to choose your company and we are so happy we did.
Early morning September
SNAKE While digging out a Sewer across the river, two men uncovered a wooden snake which prompted them to come see me. It turns out I have hired these guys before to do miscellaneous jobs and they all know I'm in the industry, so in return with a written agreement I went over and located the area to start digging. I asked them when you first found the snake which direction was it pointing? They looked at one another and shrugged there shoulders mumbling to each other Gago' which means stupid. I said its ok guys lets continue on.
The property was quite large approximately, half has about 5000 sq Meters with coconut and mangoes trees scattered throughout the property and directly to the north from where the wooden snake was found was a growth of very thick Japanese bamboo another good treasure sign.
I divided the property into 2 zones and started the first scan in Live Mode. From a starting point I choose a large Mangoes tree and with my compass started south to north and in grid formation keeping the antenna vertical at all times (just like the manual said). I walked straight as I could for an old man and stopped, I placed a rock at the end of the scan. I walked back to the Mangoes tree and stepped over two feet and started the second scan, the grids were all uniform in sequence spaced two feet apart. Most of the area was GREEN in color with a few RED streaks here and there most likely iron black sands. As I grew closer to the discovery of the wooden snake I noticed the color graphics changed to solid Red then suddenly BLUE color for 5m give or take, I then dropped an old sweat rag on the spot to come back later. As I passed over the wooden snake (digger's hole) the color turned back to green. I repeated the process 1 more time with the same results. I told the diggers the chamber might be over here! They said, dele' which means no it's over here where the wooden snake is! I said maybe OK LANG which means ok in there native tongue not arguing with the guys with machetes, but I did say I think you will end up over here 5m from your hole! Needless to say they kept digging downward and after several hours they uncovered a white heart shaped rock, followed by another medium sized and another smaller one. I started to think twice doubting my scanning results that maybe I'm wrong? Heart rocks are a sign that marks the "Chamber to a treasure site".
After this I have never seen these guys work so fast and furious at least not when I was paying them! The dirt was flying and I must admit I was anxious as well. I told them to watch for other markers and try not to move them around. Ignoring my advice the dirt kept flying, soon after I heard a ping the sound of the shovel hitting something hard, not heeding my advice the one man tossed up a river rock and said "Wala" means nothing.
I took the rock down to the river side and washed off the encrusted dirt. And sure enough there appeared a deeply carved out arrow pointing the direction of the chamber. I went back and explained to these guys the reason for the markers and how important they are to follow; they are directions to the TREASURE chamber. They both now finally agreed "OO" (yes) tired and exhausted we called it quits for the night.
The next morning early sunup we resumed digging this time more alert watching for more signs! Several more feet down the guys hit another rock this time they left it in place, I said take your knife and put a little scratch toward the river side of the rock. After washing it there appeared a "W" which is the sign of "DEATH", this worried me that somewhere was a bomb or poison. We continued digging down with extreme caution now and after several hours we uncovered two more rock's, I washed them and each had a hole in the center; this confused me the meaning of this? So we took a break and I called my close friend a professional in Japanese SYMBOLS && SIGNS and he said; "This sign have a similarity to the Japanese code which is 100 percent verification that they are the real deal for this reason, the marking are made by man not by work of nature"! There is a double meaning with the two rocks, the one hole not as deep means "GOOD SIGN" and the other deeper hole means "OPPOSITE SIDE". I then told him we found other markers a snake, arrow, w, and now the two rocks! He said follow the direction of the Snake head and arrow rock that is the direction of where the treasure chamber is. I thanked him!
LAST CHANCE
After this I just laughed to myself knowing we had a 360% chance of digging up the whole property to find the chamber! The markers we found now had no meaning! I decided to scan the same site one more time with the Pin Pointer Pro! The results were the same as the first scans the background of all the property was mostly GREEN with some slightly RED streaks, but there was still that solid Red then Blue area with definable boundaries. The equipment it's telling us something? And digging dry holes is not fun, we just want to be sure! At this point I re-read the manual. I then scanned over the RED and BLUE area 3 more times all in different directions walking 5m grid lines. We now had the RED and BLUE area quarantined with Rocks and Mangoes. To determine the depth I repeated 3 more scans as follows, in the red the numbers were quite high 15 to 17 and the Blue 13 to 16 as I continued walking the numbered declined to 2 and 1. I repeated the process 2 more times with the same results determining the depth was 15 to 16 feet give or take a few feet. So we decided to take a chance and started the excavation once again trusting our evaluation of the equipment. At first it was a boring hole with NO markers or indications of treasure. I told the guys keep digging to at least the 16' foot depth level the same as the other hole with the markers. Just so the guys would continue without complaining I agreed to pay $500 peso each that is $10 USD. So they agreed and kept digging and like I said before not as fast. Day 3 was the day we reached the 16' level and there suddenly something changed. There were carved wood logs and hard chunks of mud like cement material and tons of river sand, I knew immediately what this meant "BINGO" we hit the chamber! The chamber was small 3x4 feet according to my shoe measurement.
As for the results well look for your self at the pictures I enclosed, lets just say we all moved to another province and I'm taking up investigating WWII sites as a full time business! This was a valuable experience and what I learned is "TRUST YOUR EQUIPMENT and YOU WILL GET THERE FASTER" being patient learning to listen to what the technology and Physics is saying! This equipment does not lie it's just the interpretation that needs to be understood. Markers are not always an exact indication of the treasure chamber site although, sometimes they are. Take our site as an example. There was a good chance of not being able to use or decipher the markers, it's like archeology work. I'm so grateful we had the Pin Pointer Pro on site or we would have lost this very rich opportunity.
The technology of the Pin Pointer Pro was telling us all the time there was something there, man made, a void in BLUE was the chamber and metal in Red, and even though there was sand filling the chamber it was still a man made difference from the surrounding nature geological soil. Also note, I'm almost positive the Japanese used other clues and calculations already known to the site and forgot to put it in, ha' how convenient. Once again thank you Accurate Locators for your professional advice and service. If it was not for you I would not be where I'm today. I have total confidence in your technology and advice now. I will be back very soon to purchase several more pieces of equipment. Its hard work but the rewards far out-weigh the different, and somebody has to do it!
Your friend always!
******************
Article taken from:
http://www.accuratelocators.com/testimonial_pi.html
***************
Artifact Treasure Hunting in the Philippines
ANOTHER TREASURE FIND IN THE PHILIPPINES!
Dear Accurate Locators,
I thought you might find the enclosed story interesting! I have included pictures for your review. All I ask as agreed please do not give out names, places or any other personal information. First let me say we are very pleased with the results of the Pin Pointer Pro and to further thank you for your professional support before and after the purchase. There is so much technology on the internet and they all claim to be the best. We did our due diligence and decided to choose your company and we are so happy we did.
Early morning September
SNAKE While digging out a Sewer across the river, two men uncovered a wooden snake which prompted them to come see me. It turns out I have hired these guys before to do miscellaneous jobs and they all know I'm in the industry, so in return with a written agreement I went over and located the area to start digging. I asked them when you first found the snake which direction was it pointing? They looked at one another and shrugged there shoulders mumbling to each other Gago' which means stupid. I said its ok guys lets continue on.
The property was quite large approximately, half has about 5000 sq Meters with coconut and mangoes trees scattered throughout the property and directly to the north from where the wooden snake was found was a growth of very thick Japanese bamboo another good treasure sign.
I divided the property into 2 zones and started the first scan in Live Mode. From a starting point I choose a large Mangoes tree and with my compass started south to north and in grid formation keeping the antenna vertical at all times (just like the manual said). I walked straight as I could for an old man and stopped, I placed a rock at the end of the scan. I walked back to the Mangoes tree and stepped over two feet and started the second scan, the grids were all uniform in sequence spaced two feet apart. Most of the area was GREEN in color with a few RED streaks here and there most likely iron black sands. As I grew closer to the discovery of the wooden snake I noticed the color graphics changed to solid Red then suddenly BLUE color for 5m give or take, I then dropped an old sweat rag on the spot to come back later. As I passed over the wooden snake (digger's hole) the color turned back to green. I repeated the process 1 more time with the same results. I told the diggers the chamber might be over here! They said, dele' which means no it's over here where the wooden snake is! I said maybe OK LANG which means ok in there native tongue not arguing with the guys with machetes, but I did say I think you will end up over here 5m from your hole! Needless to say they kept digging downward and after several hours they uncovered a white heart shaped rock, followed by another medium sized and another smaller one. I started to think twice doubting my scanning results that maybe I'm wrong? Heart rocks are a sign that marks the "Chamber to a treasure site".
After this I have never seen these guys work so fast and furious at least not when I was paying them! The dirt was flying and I must admit I was anxious as well. I told them to watch for other markers and try not to move them around. Ignoring my advice the dirt kept flying, soon after I heard a ping the sound of the shovel hitting something hard, not heeding my advice the one man tossed up a river rock and said "Wala" means nothing.
I took the rock down to the river side and washed off the encrusted dirt. And sure enough there appeared a deeply carved out arrow pointing the direction of the chamber. I went back and explained to these guys the reason for the markers and how important they are to follow; they are directions to the TREASURE chamber. They both now finally agreed "OO" (yes) tired and exhausted we called it quits for the night.
The next morning early sunup we resumed digging this time more alert watching for more signs! Several more feet down the guys hit another rock this time they left it in place, I said take your knife and put a little scratch toward the river side of the rock. After washing it there appeared a "W" which is the sign of "DEATH", this worried me that somewhere was a bomb or poison. We continued digging down with extreme caution now and after several hours we uncovered two more rock's, I washed them and each had a hole in the center; this confused me the meaning of this? So we took a break and I called my close friend a professional in Japanese SYMBOLS && SIGNS and he said; "This sign have a similarity to the Japanese code which is 100 percent verification that they are the real deal for this reason, the marking are made by man not by work of nature"! There is a double meaning with the two rocks, the one hole not as deep means "GOOD SIGN" and the other deeper hole means "OPPOSITE SIDE". I then told him we found other markers a snake, arrow, w, and now the two rocks! He said follow the direction of the Snake head and arrow rock that is the direction of where the treasure chamber is. I thanked him!
LAST CHANCE
After this I just laughed to myself knowing we had a 360% chance of digging up the whole property to find the chamber! The markers we found now had no meaning! I decided to scan the same site one more time with the Pin Pointer Pro! The results were the same as the first scans the background of all the property was mostly GREEN with some slightly RED streaks, but there was still that solid Red then Blue area with definable boundaries. The equipment it's telling us something? And digging dry holes is not fun, we just want to be sure! At this point I re-read the manual. I then scanned over the RED and BLUE area 3 more times all in different directions walking 5m grid lines. We now had the RED and BLUE area quarantined with Rocks and Mangoes. To determine the depth I repeated 3 more scans as follows, in the red the numbers were quite high 15 to 17 and the Blue 13 to 16 as I continued walking the numbered declined to 2 and 1. I repeated the process 2 more times with the same results determining the depth was 15 to 16 feet give or take a few feet. So we decided to take a chance and started the excavation once again trusting our evaluation of the equipment. At first it was a boring hole with NO markers or indications of treasure. I told the guys keep digging to at least the 16' foot depth level the same as the other hole with the markers. Just so the guys would continue without complaining I agreed to pay $500 peso each that is $10 USD. So they agreed and kept digging and like I said before not as fast. Day 3 was the day we reached the 16' level and there suddenly something changed. There were carved wood logs and hard chunks of mud like cement material and tons of river sand, I knew immediately what this meant "BINGO" we hit the chamber! The chamber was small 3x4 feet according to my shoe measurement.
As for the results well look for your self at the pictures I enclosed, lets just say we all moved to another province and I'm taking up investigating WWII sites as a full time business! This was a valuable experience and what I learned is "TRUST YOUR EQUIPMENT and YOU WILL GET THERE FASTER" being patient learning to listen to what the technology and Physics is saying! This equipment does not lie it's just the interpretation that needs to be understood. Markers are not always an exact indication of the treasure chamber site although, sometimes they are. Take our site as an example. There was a good chance of not being able to use or decipher the markers, it's like archeology work. I'm so grateful we had the Pin Pointer Pro on site or we would have lost this very rich opportunity.
The technology of the Pin Pointer Pro was telling us all the time there was something there, man made, a void in BLUE was the chamber and metal in Red, and even though there was sand filling the chamber it was still a man made difference from the surrounding nature geological soil. Also note, I'm almost positive the Japanese used other clues and calculations already known to the site and forgot to put it in, ha' how convenient. Once again thank you Accurate Locators for your professional advice and service. If it was not for you I would not be where I'm today. I have total confidence in your technology and advice now. I will be back very soon to purchase several more pieces of equipment. Its hard work but the rewards far out-weigh the different, and somebody has to do it!
Your friend always!
******************
Article taken from:
http://www.accuratelocators.com/testimonial_pi.html
Dec 17, 2008
Bullion in Every Pot
By ROBERT HORN Liji
With his black stetson and colt .45 automatic, police officer Wanlop Siridon looks like a lawman out of the Wild West�Thailand's Wild West. The dense forests of the country's western border with Burma are a haven for smugglers, dope dealers and ethnic rebels. Wanlop, though, isn't hunting outlaws. He's part of a posse led by Senator Chaowarin Latthasaksiri that is tracking treasure: a legendary load of loot supposedly stashed by the Japanese Imperial Army at the end of World War II. On April 12, the group claimed to have found the trove, reputed to include 2,500 tons of gold in two railway cars and a plane, surrounded by skeletons sealed inside a cave near the infamous Death Railway�the Rangoon-to-Bangkok line that the Japanese built using slave labor during the war.
But as television crews descended on the site, the only gold Chao-warin was flaunting was his Rolex. Wanlop, who insists he has seen the booty, looked doubters dead in the eye and said: "If there's no treasure in that cave, you can take my pistol and shoot me down like a dog."
Ditch your ammo clip and fast, Wanlop. The lost treasure of Lijia Cave is now notorious as the biggest hoax in Thailand's history, a scam so brazen it came dangerously close to ensnaring the monarchy. But while the grifters never made it to the Grand Palace, the fraud reeled in (and some argue was abetted by) Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin flew to Lijia on the April 13 and after being privately shown evidence by Chaowarin, made vague pledges to enlist remote sensing satellites to probe the cave. If the find was genuine, he told reporters, it could pay off the $61 billion national debt from the Crash of '97. A poll released after Thaksin's visit showed 62% of Thais believed the treasure was real. "The whole thing is a symptom of a society in crisis," says Sunai Phasuk, a former history lecturer at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. With Thailand's economy still in sorry shape, he says, "people don't have much hope, so they want the quick fix, the pot of gold."
Tales of Japanese war gold have floated around the Thai-Burma border for decades. According to Micool Brooke, author of The Treasure of the Samurai, Japanese war veterans were arrested several times digging for loot near the Death Railway. Last year, six Thais suffocated while searching Lijia Cave. Brooke calls Chaowarin's hunt a publicity stunt. There is no treasure, he says.
Tell that to the thousands of tourists flocking to Lijia Cave which, though located in a national park, is easy to find. Just look for the 5-m high billboard that says: "Site of the treasure hunt that will save the Thai nation." As the curious file in, they are handed eight-page, full-color brochures proclaiming Chaowarin the "Outstanding Person of the Year 2000." There's also the 20-page booklet (Who Says I'm Crazy? I'm Not Crazy!) detailing his seven-year search. And there's the Senator himself, posing for pictures in his cowboy hat and talking about his upcoming audience with King Bhumibol Adulyadej to present his findings. He admits he has never seen the treasure, but insists his men have, and when the government allows them to dig, he'll prove it. If they find nothing, well, "people already say I'm mad," Chaowarin says. "But I'm sure I'm going to be a national hero."
Under pressure from reporters early last week, Chaowarin finally revealed the evidence he used to sway Thaksin and planned to show the King: 25 U.S. Treasury bonds, dated 1934, with face values of $100 million each, allegedly found in a titanium case inside Lijia. It was at this point that his tale collapsed faster than the Thai stock market. A similar phony bond scam was recently exposed in the Philippines: the U.S. has never issued bonds worth more than $10 million. A stunned Chao-warin, claiming he had been duped, told reporters he had postponed his audience with the King. He was trying to meet Thaksin, but the Prime Minister was busy. With Thai police beginning to arrest suspects in the multibillion-dollar bond fraud, Chaowarin and his team must now tread carefully to avoid implication in the ongoing investigation.
Thaksin's rebuff was a bit late. To many the Prime Minister looked like a sucker. An editorial in The Nation labeled him the subject of "international ridicule." Sunai, on the other hand, suggests Thaksin's goal was to distract attention from his ongoing trial at the Constitutional Court for allegedly burying some of his own treasure by filing a false assets dec-laration when he was Deputy Prime Minister. Or maybe he was hoping Chaowarin could help pay for the pots of gold he promised voters in order to get elected. To be sure, Thaksin's credibility is in tatters. But Lijia Cave may still make it as a tourist attraction. The billboard could read: "Site of the treasure hunt that will save the Thai nation (treasure not included)."
source:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,107319,00.html
With his black stetson and colt .45 automatic, police officer Wanlop Siridon looks like a lawman out of the Wild West�Thailand's Wild West. The dense forests of the country's western border with Burma are a haven for smugglers, dope dealers and ethnic rebels. Wanlop, though, isn't hunting outlaws. He's part of a posse led by Senator Chaowarin Latthasaksiri that is tracking treasure: a legendary load of loot supposedly stashed by the Japanese Imperial Army at the end of World War II. On April 12, the group claimed to have found the trove, reputed to include 2,500 tons of gold in two railway cars and a plane, surrounded by skeletons sealed inside a cave near the infamous Death Railway�the Rangoon-to-Bangkok line that the Japanese built using slave labor during the war.
But as television crews descended on the site, the only gold Chao-warin was flaunting was his Rolex. Wanlop, who insists he has seen the booty, looked doubters dead in the eye and said: "If there's no treasure in that cave, you can take my pistol and shoot me down like a dog."
Ditch your ammo clip and fast, Wanlop. The lost treasure of Lijia Cave is now notorious as the biggest hoax in Thailand's history, a scam so brazen it came dangerously close to ensnaring the monarchy. But while the grifters never made it to the Grand Palace, the fraud reeled in (and some argue was abetted by) Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin flew to Lijia on the April 13 and after being privately shown evidence by Chaowarin, made vague pledges to enlist remote sensing satellites to probe the cave. If the find was genuine, he told reporters, it could pay off the $61 billion national debt from the Crash of '97. A poll released after Thaksin's visit showed 62% of Thais believed the treasure was real. "The whole thing is a symptom of a society in crisis," says Sunai Phasuk, a former history lecturer at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. With Thailand's economy still in sorry shape, he says, "people don't have much hope, so they want the quick fix, the pot of gold."
Tales of Japanese war gold have floated around the Thai-Burma border for decades. According to Micool Brooke, author of The Treasure of the Samurai, Japanese war veterans were arrested several times digging for loot near the Death Railway. Last year, six Thais suffocated while searching Lijia Cave. Brooke calls Chaowarin's hunt a publicity stunt. There is no treasure, he says.
Tell that to the thousands of tourists flocking to Lijia Cave which, though located in a national park, is easy to find. Just look for the 5-m high billboard that says: "Site of the treasure hunt that will save the Thai nation." As the curious file in, they are handed eight-page, full-color brochures proclaiming Chaowarin the "Outstanding Person of the Year 2000." There's also the 20-page booklet (Who Says I'm Crazy? I'm Not Crazy!) detailing his seven-year search. And there's the Senator himself, posing for pictures in his cowboy hat and talking about his upcoming audience with King Bhumibol Adulyadej to present his findings. He admits he has never seen the treasure, but insists his men have, and when the government allows them to dig, he'll prove it. If they find nothing, well, "people already say I'm mad," Chaowarin says. "But I'm sure I'm going to be a national hero."
Under pressure from reporters early last week, Chaowarin finally revealed the evidence he used to sway Thaksin and planned to show the King: 25 U.S. Treasury bonds, dated 1934, with face values of $100 million each, allegedly found in a titanium case inside Lijia. It was at this point that his tale collapsed faster than the Thai stock market. A similar phony bond scam was recently exposed in the Philippines: the U.S. has never issued bonds worth more than $10 million. A stunned Chao-warin, claiming he had been duped, told reporters he had postponed his audience with the King. He was trying to meet Thaksin, but the Prime Minister was busy. With Thai police beginning to arrest suspects in the multibillion-dollar bond fraud, Chaowarin and his team must now tread carefully to avoid implication in the ongoing investigation.
Thaksin's rebuff was a bit late. To many the Prime Minister looked like a sucker. An editorial in The Nation labeled him the subject of "international ridicule." Sunai, on the other hand, suggests Thaksin's goal was to distract attention from his ongoing trial at the Constitutional Court for allegedly burying some of his own treasure by filing a false assets dec-laration when he was Deputy Prime Minister. Or maybe he was hoping Chaowarin could help pay for the pots of gold he promised voters in order to get elected. To be sure, Thaksin's credibility is in tatters. But Lijia Cave may still make it as a tourist attraction. The billboard could read: "Site of the treasure hunt that will save the Thai nation (treasure not included)."
source:
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,107319,00.html
Dec 13, 2008
Tribesmen retrieve pastor’s body from deep hole in Bulacan
08/08/2008 | 01:55 PM
MANILA, Philippines – Dumagat tribesmen have retrieved the body of a “born-again" pastor who fell into a 100-foot deep hole in Bulacan province on Thursday afternoon, GMA’s Balintanghali reported on Friday.
The tribesmen pulled out Arnel David’s body without using any harness, impressing members of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) fire department who have given up their attempt to rescue the victim, said the report.
It said the retrieval operation at the pit inside the Lord’s Vineyard Church in barangay Pala-pala of San Ildefonso town was completed at 4 p.m. on Thursday.
Police said the 41-year-old David was trying to get some metals from the deep pit on Tuesday morning when he fell.
David was identified as a pastor of Lord's Vineyard Church and caretaker of the lot where the church is located.
According to local media reports, David and his friend Aldrin Marade, 22, tried to get down the pit to retrieve some metal bars used by treasure hunters in digging the hole. David reportedly went down the hole and fell after he was deprived of air.
Residents said treasure hunters dug the hole in 2003 in search of gold bars supposedly buried underneath, but David stopped them.
SBMA fire chief Ranny Magno has said it was very difficult to conduct a rescue operation because the pit was so deep, its passageway was narrow and there was no air inside.
The SBMA even used an air support and air ventilator as they tried to lower one of their members down the pit to retrieve the pastor's body, but failed, reports said. The local fire department and the provincial disaster coordinating office also reportedly tried to rescue the victim, but failed. - GMANews.TV
source:
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/112410
MANILA, Philippines – Dumagat tribesmen have retrieved the body of a “born-again" pastor who fell into a 100-foot deep hole in Bulacan province on Thursday afternoon, GMA’s Balintanghali reported on Friday.
The tribesmen pulled out Arnel David’s body without using any harness, impressing members of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) fire department who have given up their attempt to rescue the victim, said the report.
It said the retrieval operation at the pit inside the Lord’s Vineyard Church in barangay Pala-pala of San Ildefonso town was completed at 4 p.m. on Thursday.
Police said the 41-year-old David was trying to get some metals from the deep pit on Tuesday morning when he fell.
David was identified as a pastor of Lord's Vineyard Church and caretaker of the lot where the church is located.
According to local media reports, David and his friend Aldrin Marade, 22, tried to get down the pit to retrieve some metal bars used by treasure hunters in digging the hole. David reportedly went down the hole and fell after he was deprived of air.
Residents said treasure hunters dug the hole in 2003 in search of gold bars supposedly buried underneath, but David stopped them.
SBMA fire chief Ranny Magno has said it was very difficult to conduct a rescue operation because the pit was so deep, its passageway was narrow and there was no air inside.
The SBMA even used an air support and air ventilator as they tried to lower one of their members down the pit to retrieve the pastor's body, but failed, reports said. The local fire department and the provincial disaster coordinating office also reportedly tried to rescue the victim, but failed. - GMANews.TV
source:
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/112410
2 men arrested for selling fake gold bars in Manila
MANILA, Philippines - Two men were caught in the act of selling allegedly fake gold bars to former overseas Filipino workers Friday in Malate, Manila, a report said.
Authorities identified the suspects as Danilo Santos, native of Cotabato City and Rudy Ortega of 211 Buhangin, Davao City.
The two were arrested based on the complaint of Teodoro De Castro, 44, of Taal, Batangas.
Manila Police District-CIDU Chief Inspector Dominador Arevalo said, the arrest happened at around 1:30 p.m. at the parking area of Harrison Plaza Commercial Complexin Manila.
The victim said in his complaint that the suspects first offered him gold bars worth 4 million pesos.
The initial transaction was initially made at Mati, Davao City last but the complainant cancelled the deal.
On December 8, the suspects again contacted the victim, willing to consummate deal. Both parties agreed to meet in Manila.
The victim reported the transaction to the police that led to the arrest of the two. - BusinessWorld
source:
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/139199/
12/13/2008
Authorities identified the suspects as Danilo Santos, native of Cotabato City and Rudy Ortega of 211 Buhangin, Davao City.
The two were arrested based on the complaint of Teodoro De Castro, 44, of Taal, Batangas.
Manila Police District-CIDU Chief Inspector Dominador Arevalo said, the arrest happened at around 1:30 p.m. at the parking area of Harrison Plaza Commercial Complexin Manila.
The victim said in his complaint that the suspects first offered him gold bars worth 4 million pesos.
The initial transaction was initially made at Mati, Davao City last but the complainant cancelled the deal.
On December 8, the suspects again contacted the victim, willing to consummate deal. Both parties agreed to meet in Manila.
The victim reported the transaction to the police that led to the arrest of the two. - BusinessWorld
source:
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/139199/
12/13/2008
Dec 12, 2008
Open Cut Treasure Site
A Story from Treasurenet
Open Cut Treasure Site
« on: November 06, 2004, 03:28:51 am »
We dug our site in Southern Mindanao, Philippines with a Japanese-trained sign & symbol reader and another member that knows the Japanese language as guides in our subsurface journey. We reached the "ceiling of the dome" after digging about 77ft. Our reader believed that we have reached the chamber of the treasure cache. We dug a pilot hole on the "ceiling" and hollow sound could be heard upon striking the deepest part after digging about 3 ft deep(total deepness now about 80ft).
We have dug layers upon layers of concrete and clay before reaching this "dome". Embedded on these layers were stones (sizes: small to large, about 500kg) with signs and symbols on them pointing to our target which is beneath the center of our hole. Other embedded pointers were tree trunks, branches, leaves, wood slab flooring, etc., all fresh looking considering they were buried 60+ years ago. Water is flowing in at about 200gpm from 2 tunnels at 39ft level. The tunnels are about 4ft high and about 6ft wide at the base (concrete arc shaped tunnels).
We stuffed them with sand bags to stop sand from coming in. Water though could freely flow. Tunnels are positive indicators that the target had been zeroed in. Other treasure hunters called it "water trap".
Our target deepness is 90ft (based on the cylindrical concrete surface marker with 3 X's engraved on its top). This could be true considering that we have reached the "ceiling of the dome" at about 77ft. The height of the "dome" could be about 10ft high. One could just imagine what is inside the "dome". Our reader is expecting us to see a concrete vault.
The pit is fully timbered and we have a set of tools and equipment present at the site. We have to rehabilitate the timber and overhaul the equipments upon re-starting the operation though. We can select a new set of crew before re-starting the operation. What we need is an investor (from anywhere in the world) who can help us complete the project. Two foreign nationals accompanied by their local lawyers paid us a visit and offered to buy us out.
The offer was about US$180T, but that is less than 1% of what our reader is expecting us to recover from the site. Our reader knew that the deposit is 3 tons upwards of gold bars, gold coins, jewelries and diamonds. We declined the offer.
We temporarily stopped the operation because of financial constraints on the part of our current investors. The project needs an amount for the recovery efforts. It's no longer a "small" project as we envisioned when we first started the diggings. But all indications are there. The search is over. The "dome" of the cache has been found.
Open Cut Treasure Site
« on: November 06, 2004, 03:28:51 am »
We dug our site in Southern Mindanao, Philippines with a Japanese-trained sign & symbol reader and another member that knows the Japanese language as guides in our subsurface journey. We reached the "ceiling of the dome" after digging about 77ft. Our reader believed that we have reached the chamber of the treasure cache. We dug a pilot hole on the "ceiling" and hollow sound could be heard upon striking the deepest part after digging about 3 ft deep(total deepness now about 80ft).
We have dug layers upon layers of concrete and clay before reaching this "dome". Embedded on these layers were stones (sizes: small to large, about 500kg) with signs and symbols on them pointing to our target which is beneath the center of our hole. Other embedded pointers were tree trunks, branches, leaves, wood slab flooring, etc., all fresh looking considering they were buried 60+ years ago. Water is flowing in at about 200gpm from 2 tunnels at 39ft level. The tunnels are about 4ft high and about 6ft wide at the base (concrete arc shaped tunnels).
We stuffed them with sand bags to stop sand from coming in. Water though could freely flow. Tunnels are positive indicators that the target had been zeroed in. Other treasure hunters called it "water trap".
Our target deepness is 90ft (based on the cylindrical concrete surface marker with 3 X's engraved on its top). This could be true considering that we have reached the "ceiling of the dome" at about 77ft. The height of the "dome" could be about 10ft high. One could just imagine what is inside the "dome". Our reader is expecting us to see a concrete vault.
The pit is fully timbered and we have a set of tools and equipment present at the site. We have to rehabilitate the timber and overhaul the equipments upon re-starting the operation though. We can select a new set of crew before re-starting the operation. What we need is an investor (from anywhere in the world) who can help us complete the project. Two foreign nationals accompanied by their local lawyers paid us a visit and offered to buy us out.
The offer was about US$180T, but that is less than 1% of what our reader is expecting us to recover from the site. Our reader knew that the deposit is 3 tons upwards of gold bars, gold coins, jewelries and diamonds. We declined the offer.
We temporarily stopped the operation because of financial constraints on the part of our current investors. The project needs an amount for the recovery efforts. It's no longer a "small" project as we envisioned when we first started the diggings. But all indications are there. The search is over. The "dome" of the cache has been found.
A Tale of Treasure Hunting Gone Awry
Source:
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/oct/15/local/me-32781
Archive for Thursday, October 15, 1998
A Tale of Treasure Hunting Gone Awry
By Daniel Yi
October 15, 1998 in print edition B-3
For Karl S. Ryll, who grew up dreaming of lost treasures in faraway lands, the lure of a sunken World War II ship in the Philippines was too strong to resist.
So Ryll pinned his fantasy on a treasure hunter from Los Angeles named Dennis Standefer.
The way Ryll tells it, Standefer boasted to investors that he had found a valuable shipwreck off a remote island in the Philippines and needed to raise funds to salvage its valuable mother lode.
But in the end there was no treasure, only financial woes for dozens of investors who now say Standefer made out with tens of thousands of dollars of their money and never lived up to his promises.
Ryll, a 37-year-old San Gabriel Valley high school teacher, has asked federal authorities to open a criminal investigation, while another investor and an ex-business partner have made similar requests abroad.
The FBI will not comment.
But the Filipino government, after being contacted by the ex-partner earlier this year, has filed fraud charges against Standefer. Authorities there believe he is eluding them by entering and leaving the country surreptitiously.
Standefer currently does business through a Web site hawking salvaged treasure and through a business associate in Las Vegas.
Standefer did not return Times requests for interviews. Neither did the Las Vegas associate, Edwin Jones III, return calls.
In the esoteric world of treasure hunting, risk goes with the territory. Projects are highly speculative, counting on data often centuries old and a good amount of luck.
“If someone offers a sure thing in the treasure business, forget it,” said Chris Nelson, vice president of a Tustin-based outfit that is raising funds for a salvage operation off the coast of the Dominican Republic. “Our investors are guaranteed one thing and one thing only, that all the money raised will go into the project, and we will put a valiant effort into finding the treasure.”
Standefer’s accusers–who admit that their dreams of riches clouded their judgment–claim he promised more.
“He ruined my life,” said Gene Hasenbeck, an engineer formerly of Claremont who alleges that he lost nearly $165,000 over three years backing Standefer’s projects. Hasenbeck said he did not complain to authorities because he could not afford any legal costs.
Ernesto D. Adobo Jr., an investigator with the Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation, said Standefer “did not fulfill his obligation” to his investors. “It turned out to be a misrepresentation. Standefer defrauded investors, in essence.”
‘I Was Impressed by His Performance’
Ryll said he first met Standefer in 1990 at a local social club, where the rotund and rugged self-styled adventurer gave a presentation about the discovery of the Central America, a side-wheel steamer that sank off the coast of North Carolina in 1857 with an estimated 42,000 pounds of California gold aboard.
The ship, discovered in 1988, was one of the most significant historic shipwreck finds of all time, along with the 1985 discovery of the Titanic.
Standefer had tenuous ties to the Central America steamer project but told Ryll and others that he was partially responsible for the discovery, Ryll said.
But court decisions from a lawsuit Standefer filed against Tommy Thompson, a marine engineer and entrepreneur widely credited with the discovery, show that Standefer had little if any participation in the project. He lost the suit and finally a federal appeal in 1991.
Ryll did not know that. Nor was he aware that Standefer had been convicted of mail fraud in 1983.
“I was impressed by his performance,” Ryll recalled.
Two years after their first meeting, Standefer and Ryll crossed paths again. This time Standefer invited him to his house, Ryll said. Ryll said that when he visited, Standefer told him he had found a valuable Japanese World War II shipwreck off the coast of Camiguin Island in the northern Philippines. He spun a complex tale about how the Japanese during the latter part of the war pillaged the country and hid treasures underground or loaded them onto ships to transport to Japan in a desperate retreat, Ryll said.
Such stories are popular in the Philippines, with reports of treasures being found occasionally.
Ryll said he initially raised nearly $90,000 from friends and acquaintances for Standefer, including $6,000 of his own money.
One of those investors was Hasenbeck, who in 1991 had just sold his family house in Claremont and was looking into investing the proceeds.
“I am really embarrassed. I feel like a total fool,” Hasenbeck said recently from Santa Rosa, where he now lives.
He said Standefer visited him and his parents with nothing more than some photos of what appeared to be sea exploration projects and a videotape he said he shot of the purported sunken Japanese ship.
Hasenbeck said that years went by with no return on the investment but that he continued to give Standefer money for this venture and others, hoping to eventually recoup the funds.
Like Hasenbeck, most investors are not pursuing legal action against Standefer because of either embarrassment, limited resources or both.
Treasure Hunters Little Regulated
There are no statistics on the scope of fraud in the little-regulated treasure hunting business, which has only a couple of dozen professional outfits operating at any time, according to those in the industry. The Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Trade Commission and state authorities said they did not have any fraud statistics involving the business. Treasure hunters have begun to unite, largely because of attempts by conservationists to ban the practice.
Peter Hess, a Wilmington, Del., attorney currently lobbying the United Nations to keep private shipwreck explorations legal, says the nascent move to organize will eventually lead to credibility and self-regulation.
The Professional Shipwreck Explorers Assn., ProSEA, was formed earlier this year and has several hundred members, from professional salvors to weekend divers interested in the field, Hess said.
“Gone are the days when deals were made on a napkin,” Nelson said. “People would invest money on a person’s word without any parameters or time frame.”
Still, the business hasn’t been without its share of controversy.
In 1991, a Fort Meyers, Fla., man claimed to have found the lost treasure of pirate Jose Gaspar off the Florida coast and sought investors for the project. The problem, according to a state official who investigated the case, was that Gaspar never existed; he was a fictitious character created by a Tampa real estate promoter in 1922.
Anger Is Tempered by Humility
Mel Fisher of Key West, Fla., considered by many to be the granddaddy of American treasure hunting, gained fame in 1985 when he found the Spanish galleon Atocha, but has since been fending off accusations in court that he passed off fake treasure and “salted” his sites, meaning he sprinkled his diving locations with items he would later claim were finds. Fisher denies the allegations.
And even marine engineer Thompson’s discovery of the Central America was mired in years of litigation by parties all claiming a share of the treasure and tying up returns to those who funded the project.
But Ryll and Hasenbeck both admit they were taken by the sense of adventure. In 1992, in the beginning of his relationship with Standefer, Ryll even traveled to the Philippines and helped in the exploration of the Japanese shipwreck.
Ryll said Standefer had called him shortly after arriving there to say that his equipment was stolen and that he needed Ryll to buy some items and bring them to him.
Ryll, who was a substitute teacher at the time, said he charged the purchases to his credit cards and flew across the Pacific.
“When I got there, he was already broke,” Ryll said. But the once-aspiring screenwriter fell in love with the location and did not think to question the situation. “I just thought he was a bad manager of money,” he said.
Ironically, shortly after Ryll left Standefer, and what turned out to be a worthless sunken ship, local divers made a discovery on another site just miles away. The other shipwreck turned out to be the Charleston. The American cruiser sank in the area in 1899, one year after the Spanish American War. Locals, using crude methods, were hauling handfuls of Mexican silver coins from the site. The news made headlines around the Philippines.
Because Standefer already had government permits to explore the Camiguin Island waters, it was the perfect opportunity, Ryll said. He added that Standefer hesitated at first, but eventually decided to focus his attention on the Charleston.
However, he did not have the means to carry on the project by himself. So he contacted another treasure hunter, Steve Morgan of San Pedro, to become a partner on the project.
Morgan, a burly, sun-beaten man, said he thought the evidence of the ship was credible. He said he committed an initial $150,000 from a pool of investors who regularly bank his projects, and worked out a deal with Standefer. Morgan would take care of operations in the United States, and Standefer would direct the actual exploration efforts, he said.
But it wasn’t long before the partnership unraveled. Morgan charges that Standefer kept stalling the project and raising issues to try to wrestle it away from him. When it appeared Standefer might be successful in doing so, he faxed letters to local newspapers painting Morgan, who had flown to Manila in his efforts to save the project, as a foreign raider pillaging Filipino national treasures.
The controversy grew so heated that the government closed the site, according to both Morgan and Philippine government official Adobo.
Ryll said he too suffered a smear campaign when he began raising objections about Standefer’s dealings earlier this year and threatened legal action.
According to Ryll, the school where he worked and the Pasadena police received anonymous faxes claiming Ryll was using the so-called date rape drug Rohypnol and other prescription medication on his students.
The police dismissed the allegations after searching Ryll’s house.
A former landlord of Standefer’s recently received a telephone bill addressed to Standefer from a hotel in Malaysia. The bill shows calls made from Standefer’s room to the Pasadena police and Ryll’s school in El Monte on the same days the officials received the anonymous faxes.
“Those are just about the most heinous charges someone can make against a teacher,” Ryll said.
Another investor, Harold Karakas, a former police officer and a private investigator from Orange County, says he has made a personal commitment to help authorities prosecute Standefer. He and Ryll are working to contact other alleged victims, hoping to convince authorities in Malaysia or Indonesia–where they believe Standefer may be hiding–to file charges against him.
They work with an anger tempered by humility.
“Greed,” Karakas admitted, “overwhelmed our common sense.”
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/oct/15/local/me-32781
Archive for Thursday, October 15, 1998
A Tale of Treasure Hunting Gone Awry
By Daniel Yi
October 15, 1998 in print edition B-3
For Karl S. Ryll, who grew up dreaming of lost treasures in faraway lands, the lure of a sunken World War II ship in the Philippines was too strong to resist.
So Ryll pinned his fantasy on a treasure hunter from Los Angeles named Dennis Standefer.
The way Ryll tells it, Standefer boasted to investors that he had found a valuable shipwreck off a remote island in the Philippines and needed to raise funds to salvage its valuable mother lode.
But in the end there was no treasure, only financial woes for dozens of investors who now say Standefer made out with tens of thousands of dollars of their money and never lived up to his promises.
Ryll, a 37-year-old San Gabriel Valley high school teacher, has asked federal authorities to open a criminal investigation, while another investor and an ex-business partner have made similar requests abroad.
The FBI will not comment.
But the Filipino government, after being contacted by the ex-partner earlier this year, has filed fraud charges against Standefer. Authorities there believe he is eluding them by entering and leaving the country surreptitiously.
Standefer currently does business through a Web site hawking salvaged treasure and through a business associate in Las Vegas.
Standefer did not return Times requests for interviews. Neither did the Las Vegas associate, Edwin Jones III, return calls.
In the esoteric world of treasure hunting, risk goes with the territory. Projects are highly speculative, counting on data often centuries old and a good amount of luck.
“If someone offers a sure thing in the treasure business, forget it,” said Chris Nelson, vice president of a Tustin-based outfit that is raising funds for a salvage operation off the coast of the Dominican Republic. “Our investors are guaranteed one thing and one thing only, that all the money raised will go into the project, and we will put a valiant effort into finding the treasure.”
Standefer’s accusers–who admit that their dreams of riches clouded their judgment–claim he promised more.
“He ruined my life,” said Gene Hasenbeck, an engineer formerly of Claremont who alleges that he lost nearly $165,000 over three years backing Standefer’s projects. Hasenbeck said he did not complain to authorities because he could not afford any legal costs.
Ernesto D. Adobo Jr., an investigator with the Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation, said Standefer “did not fulfill his obligation” to his investors. “It turned out to be a misrepresentation. Standefer defrauded investors, in essence.”
‘I Was Impressed by His Performance’
Ryll said he first met Standefer in 1990 at a local social club, where the rotund and rugged self-styled adventurer gave a presentation about the discovery of the Central America, a side-wheel steamer that sank off the coast of North Carolina in 1857 with an estimated 42,000 pounds of California gold aboard.
The ship, discovered in 1988, was one of the most significant historic shipwreck finds of all time, along with the 1985 discovery of the Titanic.
Standefer had tenuous ties to the Central America steamer project but told Ryll and others that he was partially responsible for the discovery, Ryll said.
But court decisions from a lawsuit Standefer filed against Tommy Thompson, a marine engineer and entrepreneur widely credited with the discovery, show that Standefer had little if any participation in the project. He lost the suit and finally a federal appeal in 1991.
Ryll did not know that. Nor was he aware that Standefer had been convicted of mail fraud in 1983.
“I was impressed by his performance,” Ryll recalled.
Two years after their first meeting, Standefer and Ryll crossed paths again. This time Standefer invited him to his house, Ryll said. Ryll said that when he visited, Standefer told him he had found a valuable Japanese World War II shipwreck off the coast of Camiguin Island in the northern Philippines. He spun a complex tale about how the Japanese during the latter part of the war pillaged the country and hid treasures underground or loaded them onto ships to transport to Japan in a desperate retreat, Ryll said.
Such stories are popular in the Philippines, with reports of treasures being found occasionally.
Ryll said he initially raised nearly $90,000 from friends and acquaintances for Standefer, including $6,000 of his own money.
One of those investors was Hasenbeck, who in 1991 had just sold his family house in Claremont and was looking into investing the proceeds.
“I am really embarrassed. I feel like a total fool,” Hasenbeck said recently from Santa Rosa, where he now lives.
He said Standefer visited him and his parents with nothing more than some photos of what appeared to be sea exploration projects and a videotape he said he shot of the purported sunken Japanese ship.
Hasenbeck said that years went by with no return on the investment but that he continued to give Standefer money for this venture and others, hoping to eventually recoup the funds.
Like Hasenbeck, most investors are not pursuing legal action against Standefer because of either embarrassment, limited resources or both.
Treasure Hunters Little Regulated
There are no statistics on the scope of fraud in the little-regulated treasure hunting business, which has only a couple of dozen professional outfits operating at any time, according to those in the industry. The Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Trade Commission and state authorities said they did not have any fraud statistics involving the business. Treasure hunters have begun to unite, largely because of attempts by conservationists to ban the practice.
Peter Hess, a Wilmington, Del., attorney currently lobbying the United Nations to keep private shipwreck explorations legal, says the nascent move to organize will eventually lead to credibility and self-regulation.
The Professional Shipwreck Explorers Assn., ProSEA, was formed earlier this year and has several hundred members, from professional salvors to weekend divers interested in the field, Hess said.
“Gone are the days when deals were made on a napkin,” Nelson said. “People would invest money on a person’s word without any parameters or time frame.”
Still, the business hasn’t been without its share of controversy.
In 1991, a Fort Meyers, Fla., man claimed to have found the lost treasure of pirate Jose Gaspar off the Florida coast and sought investors for the project. The problem, according to a state official who investigated the case, was that Gaspar never existed; he was a fictitious character created by a Tampa real estate promoter in 1922.
Anger Is Tempered by Humility
Mel Fisher of Key West, Fla., considered by many to be the granddaddy of American treasure hunting, gained fame in 1985 when he found the Spanish galleon Atocha, but has since been fending off accusations in court that he passed off fake treasure and “salted” his sites, meaning he sprinkled his diving locations with items he would later claim were finds. Fisher denies the allegations.
And even marine engineer Thompson’s discovery of the Central America was mired in years of litigation by parties all claiming a share of the treasure and tying up returns to those who funded the project.
But Ryll and Hasenbeck both admit they were taken by the sense of adventure. In 1992, in the beginning of his relationship with Standefer, Ryll even traveled to the Philippines and helped in the exploration of the Japanese shipwreck.
Ryll said Standefer had called him shortly after arriving there to say that his equipment was stolen and that he needed Ryll to buy some items and bring them to him.
Ryll, who was a substitute teacher at the time, said he charged the purchases to his credit cards and flew across the Pacific.
“When I got there, he was already broke,” Ryll said. But the once-aspiring screenwriter fell in love with the location and did not think to question the situation. “I just thought he was a bad manager of money,” he said.
Ironically, shortly after Ryll left Standefer, and what turned out to be a worthless sunken ship, local divers made a discovery on another site just miles away. The other shipwreck turned out to be the Charleston. The American cruiser sank in the area in 1899, one year after the Spanish American War. Locals, using crude methods, were hauling handfuls of Mexican silver coins from the site. The news made headlines around the Philippines.
Because Standefer already had government permits to explore the Camiguin Island waters, it was the perfect opportunity, Ryll said. He added that Standefer hesitated at first, but eventually decided to focus his attention on the Charleston.
However, he did not have the means to carry on the project by himself. So he contacted another treasure hunter, Steve Morgan of San Pedro, to become a partner on the project.
Morgan, a burly, sun-beaten man, said he thought the evidence of the ship was credible. He said he committed an initial $150,000 from a pool of investors who regularly bank his projects, and worked out a deal with Standefer. Morgan would take care of operations in the United States, and Standefer would direct the actual exploration efforts, he said.
But it wasn’t long before the partnership unraveled. Morgan charges that Standefer kept stalling the project and raising issues to try to wrestle it away from him. When it appeared Standefer might be successful in doing so, he faxed letters to local newspapers painting Morgan, who had flown to Manila in his efforts to save the project, as a foreign raider pillaging Filipino national treasures.
The controversy grew so heated that the government closed the site, according to both Morgan and Philippine government official Adobo.
Ryll said he too suffered a smear campaign when he began raising objections about Standefer’s dealings earlier this year and threatened legal action.
According to Ryll, the school where he worked and the Pasadena police received anonymous faxes claiming Ryll was using the so-called date rape drug Rohypnol and other prescription medication on his students.
The police dismissed the allegations after searching Ryll’s house.
A former landlord of Standefer’s recently received a telephone bill addressed to Standefer from a hotel in Malaysia. The bill shows calls made from Standefer’s room to the Pasadena police and Ryll’s school in El Monte on the same days the officials received the anonymous faxes.
“Those are just about the most heinous charges someone can make against a teacher,” Ryll said.
Another investor, Harold Karakas, a former police officer and a private investigator from Orange County, says he has made a personal commitment to help authorities prosecute Standefer. He and Ryll are working to contact other alleged victims, hoping to convince authorities in Malaysia or Indonesia–where they believe Standefer may be hiding–to file charges against him.
They work with an anger tempered by humility.
“Greed,” Karakas admitted, “overwhelmed our common sense.”
World War II Japanese gold still haunts treasure hunters
Source: http://www.whereincity.com/news/5/5515
By IANS, Mon, Jun 19, 2006
Baguio City (Philippines) : For decades, tales of buried vaults packed with gold ingots, gems and other treasures hidden by the Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines have lured treasure hunters from all around the world.
Stories abound about cryptic maps that allegedly lead to the treasures buried by Japanese soldiers in more than 100 sites in the Philippines before Japanese commander General Tomoyuki Yamashita surrendered to American troops in 1945.
But very few booty hunters actually come home with prized hoards after expensive digging expeditions, casting doubts on the existence of the so-called Yamashita treasure in the Philippines.
Those who believe say that most of the treasures were already spirited away by US forces shortly after the war, and that Japan and the US are actually in conspiracy to hide the loot, which has remained unaccounted for.
Henry Roxas, son of a locksmith who successfully dug up a one-tonne Golden Buddha statue from an underground room filled with gold bars and other treasures in the northern city of Baguio in 1971, is a believer of what is only a legend to others.
"There are Japanese treasures buried in the country," he told DPA in an interview from his house in Baguio City, 210 km north of Manila. "I know this for a fact. The Yamashita gold is real."
Roxas, a 39-year-old father of two, was only four years old when his late father Rogelio brought home the Golden Buddha and 24 gold bars dug up from a lot where the Baguio General Hospital now stands.
But the loot, including huge diamonds found inside the Golden Buddha, was seized by late president Ferdinand Marcos, leaving Roxas with only memories and pictures of the riches.
According to accounts, the Yamashita treasures came from gold, jewels and artefacts stolen by Japanese soldiers from 12 countries in East and South-East Asia during its World War II invasion of the region.
Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, authors of the book "Gold Warriors, America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold", said Roxas' Golden Buddha was an example of treasures looted from Burma (Myanmar).
The Seagraves said that while most of the looted treasures reached Japan via Korea, the rest of the booty ended up in the Philippines after US forces successfully blocked the sea routes to Japan in early 1943.
Japanese princes, led by Emperor Hirohito's brother Prince Chichibu, allegedly oversaw he burying of the treasures in 175 "imperial" vaults constructed in a maze of underground tunnels in the Philippines.
Ricardo Jose, a history professor at the University of the Philippines, conceded that Japan really looted Asian countries during their aggression in the region.
But he doubted that the Japanese would bring such huge treasures to the Philippines, even as a transit point to Japan. He also noted that while Japan built tunnels in the Philippines, the structures were part of its defence system.
"While there was looting in these countries, whether these were brought here or not is not quite sure because firstly, the Japanese knew that the Philippines would be a battleground and they knew this would be an exposed place," he told DPA.
Jose added that Yamashita could not have brought the treasures because he had many enemies and was even "banished to Northern China and Manchuria where he sat out the next two years of the war" after winning the campaign in Malaysia and Singapore.
Even the Roxas' recovery of the Golden Buddha could not convince Jose, an authority on the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.
"If you are taking it from Burma, the more logical route would be from Burma to Thailand, which was neutral and in a sense an ally of Japan," he said. "Why ship all these treasures to a place you know is going to be a battleground?"
"They could have made an agreement with Thailand, which they knew was loyal to them, or even parts of China ... or Korea."
He, however, conceded that there could be some Japanese gold buried in the Philippines, noting that Tokyo sent coins to pay their soldiers near the end of the war, while the soldiers also looted in the country.
In their book, the Seagraves alleged that the US government covertly recovered the Yamashita treasure and used "the black gold" to bankroll the Cold War. One account claimed US agents tortured Yamashita's driver into revealing the treasure sites.
They added that US President George W. Bush even authorised a recovery operation as recently as March 2001.
Treasure hunters believe the claim, noting that US troops on joint training exercises in the Philippines were actually on an expedition.
Matthew Lussenhop, spokesman for the US Embassy in Manila, did not have much to say when asked about the allegations.
"As far as I know, the embassy is not aware of any attempt by the US government to recover the alleged gold loot," he said.
By IANS, Mon, Jun 19, 2006
Baguio City (Philippines) : For decades, tales of buried vaults packed with gold ingots, gems and other treasures hidden by the Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines have lured treasure hunters from all around the world.
Stories abound about cryptic maps that allegedly lead to the treasures buried by Japanese soldiers in more than 100 sites in the Philippines before Japanese commander General Tomoyuki Yamashita surrendered to American troops in 1945.
But very few booty hunters actually come home with prized hoards after expensive digging expeditions, casting doubts on the existence of the so-called Yamashita treasure in the Philippines.
Those who believe say that most of the treasures were already spirited away by US forces shortly after the war, and that Japan and the US are actually in conspiracy to hide the loot, which has remained unaccounted for.
Henry Roxas, son of a locksmith who successfully dug up a one-tonne Golden Buddha statue from an underground room filled with gold bars and other treasures in the northern city of Baguio in 1971, is a believer of what is only a legend to others.
"There are Japanese treasures buried in the country," he told DPA in an interview from his house in Baguio City, 210 km north of Manila. "I know this for a fact. The Yamashita gold is real."
Roxas, a 39-year-old father of two, was only four years old when his late father Rogelio brought home the Golden Buddha and 24 gold bars dug up from a lot where the Baguio General Hospital now stands.
But the loot, including huge diamonds found inside the Golden Buddha, was seized by late president Ferdinand Marcos, leaving Roxas with only memories and pictures of the riches.
According to accounts, the Yamashita treasures came from gold, jewels and artefacts stolen by Japanese soldiers from 12 countries in East and South-East Asia during its World War II invasion of the region.
Sterling and Peggy Seagrave, authors of the book "Gold Warriors, America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold", said Roxas' Golden Buddha was an example of treasures looted from Burma (Myanmar).
The Seagraves said that while most of the looted treasures reached Japan via Korea, the rest of the booty ended up in the Philippines after US forces successfully blocked the sea routes to Japan in early 1943.
Japanese princes, led by Emperor Hirohito's brother Prince Chichibu, allegedly oversaw he burying of the treasures in 175 "imperial" vaults constructed in a maze of underground tunnels in the Philippines.
Ricardo Jose, a history professor at the University of the Philippines, conceded that Japan really looted Asian countries during their aggression in the region.
But he doubted that the Japanese would bring such huge treasures to the Philippines, even as a transit point to Japan. He also noted that while Japan built tunnels in the Philippines, the structures were part of its defence system.
"While there was looting in these countries, whether these were brought here or not is not quite sure because firstly, the Japanese knew that the Philippines would be a battleground and they knew this would be an exposed place," he told DPA.
Jose added that Yamashita could not have brought the treasures because he had many enemies and was even "banished to Northern China and Manchuria where he sat out the next two years of the war" after winning the campaign in Malaysia and Singapore.
Even the Roxas' recovery of the Golden Buddha could not convince Jose, an authority on the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.
"If you are taking it from Burma, the more logical route would be from Burma to Thailand, which was neutral and in a sense an ally of Japan," he said. "Why ship all these treasures to a place you know is going to be a battleground?"
"They could have made an agreement with Thailand, which they knew was loyal to them, or even parts of China ... or Korea."
He, however, conceded that there could be some Japanese gold buried in the Philippines, noting that Tokyo sent coins to pay their soldiers near the end of the war, while the soldiers also looted in the country.
In their book, the Seagraves alleged that the US government covertly recovered the Yamashita treasure and used "the black gold" to bankroll the Cold War. One account claimed US agents tortured Yamashita's driver into revealing the treasure sites.
They added that US President George W. Bush even authorised a recovery operation as recently as March 2001.
Treasure hunters believe the claim, noting that US troops on joint training exercises in the Philippines were actually on an expedition.
Matthew Lussenhop, spokesman for the US Embassy in Manila, did not have much to say when asked about the allegations.
"As far as I know, the embassy is not aware of any attempt by the US government to recover the alleged gold loot," he said.
Dec 11, 2008
3 gold farmers patay sa soil erosion sa Comval
Source: http://www.bomboradyo.com/newsdetails1.asp?ID=59761
12/11/2008 2:10:33 PM
DAVAO CITY - Tatlong mga gold farmers ang nasawi sa nangyaring soil erosion sa Sitio Bango, Bgry. Ngan, Compostela Valley province.
Kinilala ang mga biktima na sina Janil Gonzales, Johnny Gonzales at Julius Guevarra.
Sa impormasyong nakarating sa Bombo Radyo Davao, sinasabing sinubukan ng tatlo na i-divert ang daloy ng tubig sa ilog ng Monkayo ng bigla na lamang mahulog ang malalaking bato mula sa gilid na bahagi ng bundok na bahagi ng nasabing ilog na naging sanhi ng agarang kamatayan ng tatlo.
Nangyari ang nasabing insidente dakong alas kuwatro y medya ng hapon, ngunit kaninang umaga pa lamang narecover ang mga bangkay ng mga gold farmers.
Patuloy pa ngayon ang imbestigasyon kung may kinalaman sa paggamit ng dinamita ang nangyaring soil erosion.
12/11/2008 2:10:33 PM
DAVAO CITY - Tatlong mga gold farmers ang nasawi sa nangyaring soil erosion sa Sitio Bango, Bgry. Ngan, Compostela Valley province.
Kinilala ang mga biktima na sina Janil Gonzales, Johnny Gonzales at Julius Guevarra.
Sa impormasyong nakarating sa Bombo Radyo Davao, sinasabing sinubukan ng tatlo na i-divert ang daloy ng tubig sa ilog ng Monkayo ng bigla na lamang mahulog ang malalaking bato mula sa gilid na bahagi ng bundok na bahagi ng nasabing ilog na naging sanhi ng agarang kamatayan ng tatlo.
Nangyari ang nasabing insidente dakong alas kuwatro y medya ng hapon, ngunit kaninang umaga pa lamang narecover ang mga bangkay ng mga gold farmers.
Patuloy pa ngayon ang imbestigasyon kung may kinalaman sa paggamit ng dinamita ang nangyaring soil erosion.
Dec 9, 2008
The International Treasure Hunt
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961170,00.html
By Richard Lacayo;Anne Constable/Washington and Michael Riley/ Los Angeles Monday, Apr. 21, 1986
One of Ferdinand Marcos' newest possessions is a hefty volume called The Litigation Book. He consults it frequently, for it contains materials on the many lawsuits in which the Philippines' ex-President is embroiled. Prepared by Anderson, Hibey, Nauheim & Blair, the Washington law firm that is directing Marcos' legal defense in the U.S., the book is very much a work in progress and is carefully updated every day. Last week's events should merit quite an entry.
In testimony before a House Asian and Pacific affairs subcommittee, two New York City real estate executives told how they helped Marcos and his wife Imelda secretly acquire New York real estate. Faced with prosecution for contempt of Congress if they kept silent, Joseph and Ralph Bernstein described the complicated dealings of the Philippine first family, who allegedly hold three office buildings and an enclosed, multistory shopping mall in Manhattan, estimated to be worth some $350 million. Joseph Bernstein even recalled joining Mrs. Marcos on a midnight drive to a Wall Street building, where she went to gaze in admiration at her possession. "She was kind of proud of it," he said.
Apparently not proud enough to sign her name to the deed, however, a fact that has been causing no end of difficulty for Philippine government lawyers. The Bernstein testimony, accompanied by a chart, was a major boost to the effort to trace ownership through the layers of dummy companies. Explaining a typical deal, Joseph Bernstein told how he helped create a holding company in the Netherlands Antilles that was itself held by three firms in Panama, the stock of which had no identified owner.
For the squads of Philippine lawyers preparing cases on three continents, stripping away the financial camouflage that disguises the Marcos empire is just one part of what international law scholars agree will be an extraordinarily complicated legal battle. Marcos' attorneys have counted 15 lawsuits in the U.S., most of them the result of a full-court press by Manila. In addition to the New York properties, the government of Corazon Aquino has laid claim to two residences in New Jersey and $50 million in Texas real estate. The Central Bank of the Philippines has sued to recover the crates of gold and $1.5 million in freshly minted pesos that Marcos took with him to Hawaii in February. In what is potentially the most lucrative development of all, Switzerland three weeks ago took the unprecedented step of putting a temporary freeze on bank accounts in which some Philippine officials believe Marcos stashed as much as $3 billion.
The Philippines "good government" commission has a basic strategy for trying to retrieve Marcos' wealth in the U.S.: get American courts to freeze the disputed assets, then adjudicate ownership in the Philippines to prove that they were improperly acquired. The judgments of the Philippine courts would then be presented to American courts, which would be asked to order the transfer of the property to the Philippine government. "It's traditional legal practice for foreign judgments to be given effect in this country," contends Severina Rivera, a Washington-based attorney for the commission.
But to be enforced by U.S. courts, foreign judgments must be shown to be the result of fair proceedings. One thing that means is giving the defendant a meaningful chance to be heard. With Marcos unlikely to return, says Harvard Law Professor Abram Chayes, the Aquino government must take care to "give him as much opportunity as possible to present his case." For instance, says Chayes, it might consider appointing a neutral tribunal of lawyers or judges to take testimony from Marcos in Hawaii. In Manila's favor is the fact that federal courts usually defer to presidential policy in cases touching upon foreign affairs. In the government papers thus far filed in Marcos legal matters, the White House has indicated a pro-Aquino tilt.
Marcos can be expected to claim immunity from lawsuits for acts undertaken in his executive capacity. Even if the courts reject his assertion that he is still the legal President of the Philippines, says Marcos' Washington lawyer Richard Hibey, "he should still enjoy absolute immunity for official acts." Aquino attorneys reply that Marcos did not act within the lawful powers of the presidency and that, in any case, immunity does not apply to commercial activities like real estate deals.
Whatever the outcome, the Marcos legal miasma may become the lead case in an emerging area of jurisprudence that might be called deposed-dictator law. Many of the same problems arose in the effort by Iran to regain the wealth of the exiled Shah, but the hostage seizure abruptly ended any American interest in recognizing Iranian claims. As for the Haitian government's effort to recover an estimated $400 million to $800 million in the overseas assets of ex-Dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, the Reagan Administration two weeks ago promised its cooperation. But that legal effort has been moving slowly, and furthermore, there are no known documents in Washington's possession relating to Duvalier holdings.
Marcos may not relish his new legal status, but as a lawyer, he is interested. His chief Washington attorney, Stanton Anderson, describes him as "shocked by the cost of litigation" but also "fascinated by the legal issues." In his rented beachfront house in Honolulu, he told the New York Times last week that his days are now consumed by consultations with lawyers. "I intend to vindicate myself within my lifetime," he vowed. It remains to be seen whether a lifetime will be long enough.
By Richard Lacayo;Anne Constable/Washington and Michael Riley/ Los Angeles Monday, Apr. 21, 1986
One of Ferdinand Marcos' newest possessions is a hefty volume called The Litigation Book. He consults it frequently, for it contains materials on the many lawsuits in which the Philippines' ex-President is embroiled. Prepared by Anderson, Hibey, Nauheim & Blair, the Washington law firm that is directing Marcos' legal defense in the U.S., the book is very much a work in progress and is carefully updated every day. Last week's events should merit quite an entry.
In testimony before a House Asian and Pacific affairs subcommittee, two New York City real estate executives told how they helped Marcos and his wife Imelda secretly acquire New York real estate. Faced with prosecution for contempt of Congress if they kept silent, Joseph and Ralph Bernstein described the complicated dealings of the Philippine first family, who allegedly hold three office buildings and an enclosed, multistory shopping mall in Manhattan, estimated to be worth some $350 million. Joseph Bernstein even recalled joining Mrs. Marcos on a midnight drive to a Wall Street building, where she went to gaze in admiration at her possession. "She was kind of proud of it," he said.
Apparently not proud enough to sign her name to the deed, however, a fact that has been causing no end of difficulty for Philippine government lawyers. The Bernstein testimony, accompanied by a chart, was a major boost to the effort to trace ownership through the layers of dummy companies. Explaining a typical deal, Joseph Bernstein told how he helped create a holding company in the Netherlands Antilles that was itself held by three firms in Panama, the stock of which had no identified owner.
For the squads of Philippine lawyers preparing cases on three continents, stripping away the financial camouflage that disguises the Marcos empire is just one part of what international law scholars agree will be an extraordinarily complicated legal battle. Marcos' attorneys have counted 15 lawsuits in the U.S., most of them the result of a full-court press by Manila. In addition to the New York properties, the government of Corazon Aquino has laid claim to two residences in New Jersey and $50 million in Texas real estate. The Central Bank of the Philippines has sued to recover the crates of gold and $1.5 million in freshly minted pesos that Marcos took with him to Hawaii in February. In what is potentially the most lucrative development of all, Switzerland three weeks ago took the unprecedented step of putting a temporary freeze on bank accounts in which some Philippine officials believe Marcos stashed as much as $3 billion.
The Philippines "good government" commission has a basic strategy for trying to retrieve Marcos' wealth in the U.S.: get American courts to freeze the disputed assets, then adjudicate ownership in the Philippines to prove that they were improperly acquired. The judgments of the Philippine courts would then be presented to American courts, which would be asked to order the transfer of the property to the Philippine government. "It's traditional legal practice for foreign judgments to be given effect in this country," contends Severina Rivera, a Washington-based attorney for the commission.
But to be enforced by U.S. courts, foreign judgments must be shown to be the result of fair proceedings. One thing that means is giving the defendant a meaningful chance to be heard. With Marcos unlikely to return, says Harvard Law Professor Abram Chayes, the Aquino government must take care to "give him as much opportunity as possible to present his case." For instance, says Chayes, it might consider appointing a neutral tribunal of lawyers or judges to take testimony from Marcos in Hawaii. In Manila's favor is the fact that federal courts usually defer to presidential policy in cases touching upon foreign affairs. In the government papers thus far filed in Marcos legal matters, the White House has indicated a pro-Aquino tilt.
Marcos can be expected to claim immunity from lawsuits for acts undertaken in his executive capacity. Even if the courts reject his assertion that he is still the legal President of the Philippines, says Marcos' Washington lawyer Richard Hibey, "he should still enjoy absolute immunity for official acts." Aquino attorneys reply that Marcos did not act within the lawful powers of the presidency and that, in any case, immunity does not apply to commercial activities like real estate deals.
Whatever the outcome, the Marcos legal miasma may become the lead case in an emerging area of jurisprudence that might be called deposed-dictator law. Many of the same problems arose in the effort by Iran to regain the wealth of the exiled Shah, but the hostage seizure abruptly ended any American interest in recognizing Iranian claims. As for the Haitian government's effort to recover an estimated $400 million to $800 million in the overseas assets of ex-Dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, the Reagan Administration two weeks ago promised its cooperation. But that legal effort has been moving slowly, and furthermore, there are no known documents in Washington's possession relating to Duvalier holdings.
Marcos may not relish his new legal status, but as a lawyer, he is interested. His chief Washington attorney, Stanton Anderson, describes him as "shocked by the cost of litigation" but also "fascinated by the legal issues." In his rented beachfront house in Honolulu, he told the New York Times last week that his days are now consumed by consultations with lawyers. "I intend to vindicate myself within my lifetime," he vowed. It remains to be seen whether a lifetime will be long enough.
Urban miners look for precious metals in cell phones
Published Date: April 29, 2008
By Miho Yoshikawa
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTM1MDk5NzI2Mw==
Thinking of throwing out your old cell phone? Think again. Maybe you should mine it first for gold, silver, copper and a host of other metals embedded in the electronics-many of which are enjoying near-record prices. It's called "urban mining", scavenging through the scrap metal in old electronic products in search of such gems as iridium and gold, and it is a growth industry around the world as metal prices skyrocket. The materials recovered are reused in new electronics parts and the gold and other preci
ous metals are melted down and sold as ingots to jewelers and investors as well as back to manufacturers who use gold in the circuit boards of mobile phones because gold conducts electricity even better than copper.
It can be precious or minor metals, we want to recycle whatever we can," said Tadahiko Sekigawa, president of Eco-System Recycling Co which is owned by Dowa Holdings Co Ltd. A ton of ore from a gold mine produces just 5 grams (0.18 ounce) of gold on average, whereas a ton of discarded mobile phones can yield 150 grams (5.3 ounce) or more, according to a study by Yokohama Metal Co Ltd, another recycling firm. The same volume of discarded mobile phones also contains around 100 kg (220 lb) of copper and 3 kg
(6.6 lb) of silver, among other metals. Recycling has gained in importance as metals prices hit record highs. Gold is trading at around $890 an ounce, after hitting a historic high of $1,030.80 in March. Copper and tin are also around record highs and silver prices are well above long term averages.
Recycling metals
Recycling electronics makes sense for Japan which has few natural resources to feed its billion dollar electronics industry but does have tens of millions of old cell phones and other obsolete consumer electronic gadgets thrown away every year. "To some it's just a mountain of garbage, but for others it's a gold mine," said Nozomu Yamanaka, manager of the Eco-Systems recycling plant where mounds of discarded cell phones and other electronics gadgets are taken apart for their metal value. At the factory in
Honjo, 80 km southwest of Tokyo, 34-year-old Susumu Arai harvests some of that bounty. A ribbon of molten gold flows into a mould where it sizzles and spits fire for a few minutes before solidifying into a dull yellow slab, on its way to becoming a 3 kg (6.6 lb) gold bar, worth around $90,000 at current prices.
Wearing plastic goggles to protect his eyes while he works, Arai said he was awestruck when he started his job two years ago. "Now I find it fun being able to recover not just gold, but all sorts of metals," he said. The scrap electronics and other industrial waste is first sorted and dismantled by hand. It is then immersed in chemicals to dissolve unwanted materials and the remaining metal is refined. Eco-System, established 20 years ago near Tokyo, typically produces about 200-300 kg (440-660 lb) of gold
bars a month with a 99.99 percent purity, worth about $5.9 million to $8.8 million. That's about the same output as a small gold mine. Eco-System also recovers metals from old memory chips, cables and even black ink which contain silver and palladium.
Recycling cell phones
But despite growing interest in the environment and recycling, the industry struggles to get enough old mobile phones to feed its recycling plants. Japan's 128 million population uses their cell phones for an average of two years and eight months. That's a lot of cell phone phones discarded every year, yet only 10-20 percent are recycled as people often opt to store them in their cupboards due to concerns about the personal data on their phones, said Yoshinori Yajima, a director at Japan's Ministry of Econ
omy, Trade and Industry. Just 558 tons of old phones were collected for recycling in the year to March 2007, down a third from three years earlier, industry figures show.
As metals prices rise, the Japanese industry faces growing competition for scrap, which is pushing up prices. "We are seeing more competition from Chinese firms, and naturally the goods go where the money is," Dowa's Takashi Morise said. In response, Japanese firms are importing used circuit boards from Singapore and Indonesia, as they also contain valuable minor metals that Japan is particularly eager to recover.
These minor metals such as indium, a vital component in the production of flat panel televisions and computer screens, antimony and bismuth are indispensable for producing many high-tech products. However, they are often not easy to acquire as China has tightened export controls, making it harder for Japanese manufacturers to buy these metals. That's where the "urban miners" step in. "Our wish is to be able to help Japanese manufacturers that need these metals," Eco-System President Sekigawa said. - Reuter
By Miho Yoshikawa
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTM1MDk5NzI2Mw==
Thinking of throwing out your old cell phone? Think again. Maybe you should mine it first for gold, silver, copper and a host of other metals embedded in the electronics-many of which are enjoying near-record prices. It's called "urban mining", scavenging through the scrap metal in old electronic products in search of such gems as iridium and gold, and it is a growth industry around the world as metal prices skyrocket. The materials recovered are reused in new electronics parts and the gold and other preci
ous metals are melted down and sold as ingots to jewelers and investors as well as back to manufacturers who use gold in the circuit boards of mobile phones because gold conducts electricity even better than copper.
It can be precious or minor metals, we want to recycle whatever we can," said Tadahiko Sekigawa, president of Eco-System Recycling Co which is owned by Dowa Holdings Co Ltd. A ton of ore from a gold mine produces just 5 grams (0.18 ounce) of gold on average, whereas a ton of discarded mobile phones can yield 150 grams (5.3 ounce) or more, according to a study by Yokohama Metal Co Ltd, another recycling firm. The same volume of discarded mobile phones also contains around 100 kg (220 lb) of copper and 3 kg
(6.6 lb) of silver, among other metals. Recycling has gained in importance as metals prices hit record highs. Gold is trading at around $890 an ounce, after hitting a historic high of $1,030.80 in March. Copper and tin are also around record highs and silver prices are well above long term averages.
Recycling metals
Recycling electronics makes sense for Japan which has few natural resources to feed its billion dollar electronics industry but does have tens of millions of old cell phones and other obsolete consumer electronic gadgets thrown away every year. "To some it's just a mountain of garbage, but for others it's a gold mine," said Nozomu Yamanaka, manager of the Eco-Systems recycling plant where mounds of discarded cell phones and other electronics gadgets are taken apart for their metal value. At the factory in
Honjo, 80 km southwest of Tokyo, 34-year-old Susumu Arai harvests some of that bounty. A ribbon of molten gold flows into a mould where it sizzles and spits fire for a few minutes before solidifying into a dull yellow slab, on its way to becoming a 3 kg (6.6 lb) gold bar, worth around $90,000 at current prices.
Wearing plastic goggles to protect his eyes while he works, Arai said he was awestruck when he started his job two years ago. "Now I find it fun being able to recover not just gold, but all sorts of metals," he said. The scrap electronics and other industrial waste is first sorted and dismantled by hand. It is then immersed in chemicals to dissolve unwanted materials and the remaining metal is refined. Eco-System, established 20 years ago near Tokyo, typically produces about 200-300 kg (440-660 lb) of gold
bars a month with a 99.99 percent purity, worth about $5.9 million to $8.8 million. That's about the same output as a small gold mine. Eco-System also recovers metals from old memory chips, cables and even black ink which contain silver and palladium.
Recycling cell phones
But despite growing interest in the environment and recycling, the industry struggles to get enough old mobile phones to feed its recycling plants. Japan's 128 million population uses their cell phones for an average of two years and eight months. That's a lot of cell phone phones discarded every year, yet only 10-20 percent are recycled as people often opt to store them in their cupboards due to concerns about the personal data on their phones, said Yoshinori Yajima, a director at Japan's Ministry of Econ
omy, Trade and Industry. Just 558 tons of old phones were collected for recycling in the year to March 2007, down a third from three years earlier, industry figures show.
As metals prices rise, the Japanese industry faces growing competition for scrap, which is pushing up prices. "We are seeing more competition from Chinese firms, and naturally the goods go where the money is," Dowa's Takashi Morise said. In response, Japanese firms are importing used circuit boards from Singapore and Indonesia, as they also contain valuable minor metals that Japan is particularly eager to recover.
These minor metals such as indium, a vital component in the production of flat panel televisions and computer screens, antimony and bismuth are indispensable for producing many high-tech products. However, they are often not easy to acquire as China has tightened export controls, making it harder for Japanese manufacturers to buy these metals. That's where the "urban miners" step in. "Our wish is to be able to help Japanese manufacturers that need these metals," Eco-System President Sekigawa said. - Reuter
Dec 8, 2008
Quest renews for Legendary Japanese War Booty
MANILA, -- The quest for alleged Japanese war treasures thought to be buried in the Philippines and worth trillions of dollars is on again with renewed determination.
Newly revived tales of war booty thought to have been stashed by Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita during World War II are swirling again in coffee shops in the northern Philippines.
A Presbyterian pastor hastily called a press conference to spread the news about legendary treasures believed to have been part of the Yamashita stash.
The "booty" has so far amounted to a couple of old metal drums, the rubber sole of a shoe, miscellaneous strands of chicken wire and skeletal remains dug up by 23 construction workers on a vacant lot in the northern Philippine town of Carmen in Pangasinan, 182 kilometers north of Manila.
The 1,083-square-meter lot is the site of a new Presbyterian Church and a multipurpose building the church is planning to erect in the province.
There have been reports that the grassy plot of land used to be a Japanese military camp during the war. Korean pastor Joshua Kimok Cho said metal drums slightly longer than 1 meter were unearthed Jan. 26 at a depth of about 1.5 meters next to a number of "beautiful stones neatly arranged on top of each other."
"We saw an arrow on top of the drum," said Cho. "But we are not sure if there is gold or not. But according to police officials, there's a strong possibility that there is treasure in the area." Presbyterian officials immediately notified local officials about the discovery.
News of discovered "booty" spread like wildfire in neighboring towns, sending curious treasure hunters scurrying to the site. Six policemen were immediately sent to the site to guard the find.
Unconfirmed reports say treasures have already been unearthed in the area. Officials are planning to open the drums Monday. According to the tales, Yamashita allegedly collected some 4,000 to 6,000 tons of gold bars and other precious stones and metals, jewelry, coins and bank notes worth billions of dollars, which he allegedly buried at 172 different sites in the Philippine archipelago in the l940s. The cache has been estimated to be worth trillions of dollars today..
Newly revived tales of war booty thought to have been stashed by Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita during World War II are swirling again in coffee shops in the northern Philippines.
A Presbyterian pastor hastily called a press conference to spread the news about legendary treasures believed to have been part of the Yamashita stash.
The "booty" has so far amounted to a couple of old metal drums, the rubber sole of a shoe, miscellaneous strands of chicken wire and skeletal remains dug up by 23 construction workers on a vacant lot in the northern Philippine town of Carmen in Pangasinan, 182 kilometers north of Manila.
The 1,083-square-meter lot is the site of a new Presbyterian Church and a multipurpose building the church is planning to erect in the province.
There have been reports that the grassy plot of land used to be a Japanese military camp during the war. Korean pastor Joshua Kimok Cho said metal drums slightly longer than 1 meter were unearthed Jan. 26 at a depth of about 1.5 meters next to a number of "beautiful stones neatly arranged on top of each other."
"We saw an arrow on top of the drum," said Cho. "But we are not sure if there is gold or not. But according to police officials, there's a strong possibility that there is treasure in the area." Presbyterian officials immediately notified local officials about the discovery.
News of discovered "booty" spread like wildfire in neighboring towns, sending curious treasure hunters scurrying to the site. Six policemen were immediately sent to the site to guard the find.
Unconfirmed reports say treasures have already been unearthed in the area. Officials are planning to open the drums Monday. According to the tales, Yamashita allegedly collected some 4,000 to 6,000 tons of gold bars and other precious stones and metals, jewelry, coins and bank notes worth billions of dollars, which he allegedly buried at 172 different sites in the Philippine archipelago in the l940s. The cache has been estimated to be worth trillions of dollars today..
Aug 26, 2008
A Story from Ming Forum - Yamashita Treasure
In 1945, at the end of the 2nd World War Japanese soldiers surrendered but some of them escaped. Others were put in prison in Palawan.
One Japanese soldier befriended one of his Filipino inmates. When the Japanese soldier knew that he will be executed he confessed to his Filipino friend about the treasure that they have buried in Negros. He passed the information and a simple map or direction to the hidden treasure.
When this Filipino inmate was finally freed after the war, he gave this map and the information about the hidden treasure to his bestfriend.
In 1953, the bestfriend of the Filipino co-inmate of the Japanese prisoner along with his close friends attemted to locate the buried treasure following the instructions on the map. They were aiming to retrieve the giveways of five gold bars hidden beside the waterfall at the depth of 6 feet.
The instructions on the map stated that once recovered these five gold bars should be utilized in retrieving the remaining of the hidden cache of gold bars buried deeper within the area. The cache was buried by bombing the sides of the waterfall to cover the treasure.
The Japanese covered it with concrete before bombing the place. The location was supposedly at the center of the area at the bottom of the 7th waterfall from the bottom of the mountain facing the east.
It was believed that over a thousand Filipino prisoners of war were forced to carry and stockpiled these the treasure. All of them were killed after theoperation. Upon the initial inspection to this place bones and skulls were still scattered around.
The first group who explored the site using the map alledgedly recovered the give-aways of five (5) gold bars each weighing approx. 6.5 kg. However, on their way down from the mountain, they were intercepted by the HUKs or HUKBALAHAP (Hukbong Bayan Laban sa mga Hapones) who sequestered the five (5) gold bars recovered from the 7th waterfall.
And one of those adventurers was a 16-year old lad who shared this information with his bestfriend. However, due to the mishap with the HUKS, all of them were traumatized and never desired to go back the place to recover theremaining of the hidden treasure.
All of this lad's companions during the retrieval were all dead by now. In 2000, the lad who was by the time 63 was invited by his best friend to revisit the site. And he could still vividly remember all the places where they had passed especially the place where they were intercepted by the armed men who confiscated their find.
They found out that this seventh waterfall had different surroundings. The stones and rocks were broken. Cut and splintered logs were all over the place making an indication of the bombing as described by the Japanese prisoner.
The group started to dig up a hole 10 by 10 feet not in accordance with the instructions given by the Japanese.
On the contrary the alledged instruction passed on by the Japanese prisoner was to move the three big rocks that held the stockpile to the lower portion of the creek, then start clearing until the concrete slab was reached. And the flooding during the rainy days would assist them to clear the stock pile and expose the concrete slab beneath.
The diggers didn’t follow the above procedures at first because they thought that by doing what they did, they could work it out more easily in a shorted time period. At 15 feet deep, they had recovered a Japanese helmet. At 27 feet theyhad finally reached the concrete slab. The alleged treasure contained the maps of the other buried treasure within the area.
Then after almost a year of operaton and having spent approx. P150,000.00 and had removed almost two-thirds (2/3) of the stockpile moved out becausethey had finally followed the right instruction.
However, on December 2002, a heavy rain struck the area and resulted to the collapse of the excavation and covered the hole with rocks once more.
The group are very willing to start the operation again, but because of insufficient funds they orginal group is now willing to work with anybody group who are willing to finace the retrieval operation.
Interested to know more? Send email
One Japanese soldier befriended one of his Filipino inmates. When the Japanese soldier knew that he will be executed he confessed to his Filipino friend about the treasure that they have buried in Negros. He passed the information and a simple map or direction to the hidden treasure.
When this Filipino inmate was finally freed after the war, he gave this map and the information about the hidden treasure to his bestfriend.
In 1953, the bestfriend of the Filipino co-inmate of the Japanese prisoner along with his close friends attemted to locate the buried treasure following the instructions on the map. They were aiming to retrieve the giveways of five gold bars hidden beside the waterfall at the depth of 6 feet.
The instructions on the map stated that once recovered these five gold bars should be utilized in retrieving the remaining of the hidden cache of gold bars buried deeper within the area. The cache was buried by bombing the sides of the waterfall to cover the treasure.
The Japanese covered it with concrete before bombing the place. The location was supposedly at the center of the area at the bottom of the 7th waterfall from the bottom of the mountain facing the east.
It was believed that over a thousand Filipino prisoners of war were forced to carry and stockpiled these the treasure. All of them were killed after theoperation. Upon the initial inspection to this place bones and skulls were still scattered around.
The first group who explored the site using the map alledgedly recovered the give-aways of five (5) gold bars each weighing approx. 6.5 kg. However, on their way down from the mountain, they were intercepted by the HUKs or HUKBALAHAP (Hukbong Bayan Laban sa mga Hapones) who sequestered the five (5) gold bars recovered from the 7th waterfall.
And one of those adventurers was a 16-year old lad who shared this information with his bestfriend. However, due to the mishap with the HUKS, all of them were traumatized and never desired to go back the place to recover theremaining of the hidden treasure.
All of this lad's companions during the retrieval were all dead by now. In 2000, the lad who was by the time 63 was invited by his best friend to revisit the site. And he could still vividly remember all the places where they had passed especially the place where they were intercepted by the armed men who confiscated their find.
They found out that this seventh waterfall had different surroundings. The stones and rocks were broken. Cut and splintered logs were all over the place making an indication of the bombing as described by the Japanese prisoner.
The group started to dig up a hole 10 by 10 feet not in accordance with the instructions given by the Japanese.
On the contrary the alledged instruction passed on by the Japanese prisoner was to move the three big rocks that held the stockpile to the lower portion of the creek, then start clearing until the concrete slab was reached. And the flooding during the rainy days would assist them to clear the stock pile and expose the concrete slab beneath.
The diggers didn’t follow the above procedures at first because they thought that by doing what they did, they could work it out more easily in a shorted time period. At 15 feet deep, they had recovered a Japanese helmet. At 27 feet theyhad finally reached the concrete slab. The alleged treasure contained the maps of the other buried treasure within the area.
Then after almost a year of operaton and having spent approx. P150,000.00 and had removed almost two-thirds (2/3) of the stockpile moved out becausethey had finally followed the right instruction.
However, on December 2002, a heavy rain struck the area and resulted to the collapse of the excavation and covered the hole with rocks once more.
The group are very willing to start the operation again, but because of insufficient funds they orginal group is now willing to work with anybody group who are willing to finace the retrieval operation.
Interested to know more? Send email
Aug 25, 2008
Aug 24, 2008
DENR requires treasure hunters to get permits
By TJ BurgonioPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst Posted 09:59pm (Mla time) 12/19/2007
MANILA, Philippines
Oops, hold it right there. You can't dig treasures inside caves without permit. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has issued an administrative order requiring treasure hunters to secure a permit before digging in caves across the country. Administrative Order No. 2007-34 was aimed at conserving, protecting and managing the flora and fauna in the caves from destructive treasure hunting, Environment Secretary Lito Atienza said.
"It is a national policy that the State should have full control and supervision in the discovery and disposition of hidden treasures in caves,'' he said.
The order governs the issuance of permits for the collection of hidden treasures in caves within public domain and private lands.
It complements Republic Act No. 9072, also known as the National Caves and Cave Resources Management and Protection Act.
"There's an ecosystem inside caves that should be protected from destructive treasure hunting activities,'' Director Mundita Lim of the Protected Area and Wildlife Bureau said in a phone interview.
The rich flora and fauna inside more than 1,000 caves across the country risk getting damaged by diggings, she said.
Over the years, there have been continuing reports about individuals digging caves in mountains in search of the famed Yamashita treasure.
Under the order, an individual, a partnership, association, cooperative, or corporation may apply for a permit upon payment of P10,000 application fee at the regional office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.
The permit is effective for one year, and may be renewed only once for another year.
The applicant is required to post a surety bond with the Government Service Insurance System or any accredited bonding company to guarantee payment for whatever damage that may be incurred during digging and excavations.
This is apart from the rehabilitation fee that will be posted by the applicant as a guarantee payment for disasters of adverse impacts on communities, according to the order. Teams from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources will monitor the treasure hunting activities to ensure the permit holder's compliance with the conditions of the permit.
Once hidden treasures are dug up, the National Museum will be called to assess whether these are of cultural and historical value. If they have such a value, they will be turned over to the Museum.
Otherwise, they will be turned over to the Oversight Committee for Treasure Hunting.
Of treasures recovered within public lands, 75 percent will go to the government and the rest to the permit holder. With regards to treasures dug up on private land, 30 percent will go to government, and the rest to the permit holder and landowner.
The permit will be cancelled once the terms are violated.
MANILA, Philippines
Oops, hold it right there. You can't dig treasures inside caves without permit. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has issued an administrative order requiring treasure hunters to secure a permit before digging in caves across the country. Administrative Order No. 2007-34 was aimed at conserving, protecting and managing the flora and fauna in the caves from destructive treasure hunting, Environment Secretary Lito Atienza said.
"It is a national policy that the State should have full control and supervision in the discovery and disposition of hidden treasures in caves,'' he said.
The order governs the issuance of permits for the collection of hidden treasures in caves within public domain and private lands.
It complements Republic Act No. 9072, also known as the National Caves and Cave Resources Management and Protection Act.
"There's an ecosystem inside caves that should be protected from destructive treasure hunting activities,'' Director Mundita Lim of the Protected Area and Wildlife Bureau said in a phone interview.
The rich flora and fauna inside more than 1,000 caves across the country risk getting damaged by diggings, she said.
Over the years, there have been continuing reports about individuals digging caves in mountains in search of the famed Yamashita treasure.
Under the order, an individual, a partnership, association, cooperative, or corporation may apply for a permit upon payment of P10,000 application fee at the regional office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau.
The permit is effective for one year, and may be renewed only once for another year.
The applicant is required to post a surety bond with the Government Service Insurance System or any accredited bonding company to guarantee payment for whatever damage that may be incurred during digging and excavations.
This is apart from the rehabilitation fee that will be posted by the applicant as a guarantee payment for disasters of adverse impacts on communities, according to the order. Teams from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources will monitor the treasure hunting activities to ensure the permit holder's compliance with the conditions of the permit.
Once hidden treasures are dug up, the National Museum will be called to assess whether these are of cultural and historical value. If they have such a value, they will be turned over to the Museum.
Otherwise, they will be turned over to the Oversight Committee for Treasure Hunting.
Of treasures recovered within public lands, 75 percent will go to the government and the rest to the permit holder. With regards to treasures dug up on private land, 30 percent will go to government, and the rest to the permit holder and landowner.
The permit will be cancelled once the terms are violated.
3 Yamashita treasure hunters die in Laguna
Ferdinand F. Castro
BINAN, Laguna
Tragedy ended the search of brothers for the fabled Yamashita treasure in Barangay Timbao, this town.
A friend who desperately tried to save the two also lost his life in a freak accident.
Police were told that brothers Apolinario S. Samiano, 25, married, a tricycle driver, and his elder brother Bonifacio, 28, also married, a construction worker, had died inside the hole they had been digging for one month, reportedly, after they had inhaled toxic fumes.
Their friend, Percival Delgado, 42, single, a construction worker, reportedly had tried to save the two by using a rope to go down a 30-foot-deep hole, not knowing it was tied to a water pump, that when he descended, the pump also hurtled down and crashed on his head, killing him instantly.
Binan chief of police, P/Supt. Edgardo de Leon said the Samianos and Delgado were residents of Pandacan St., Sitio Kiliti, Timbao, Binan.
Police said relatives of the victims, Francisco J. Samiano and his wife, Lucita Salazar, answered questions of police in connection with the death of the three victims.
On Tuesday afternoon, Binan police received a call at about 5:45 p.m. informing them that an explosion took place at the compound of the residence of the Samiano couple where the victims live. Police probers were still trying to verify the said report.
The victims reportedly were looking for Yamashita treasure when the tragedy took place.
"Allegedly, pag may malapit na makuha ang object o ginto may lason ang mga takip or cover nito, iyon ang trap", De Leon had claimed.
General Yamashita was in command of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. When American forces, led by General Douglas MacArthur, arrived to liberate the Philippines, Yamashita reportedly hid in different places the fabled treasures he had amassed from the several places in the country, particularly in Baguio City.
Probers were still investigating the real cause of death of the victims. Police are also trying to investigate if the trios are victims of methane gas poisoning
source: http://www.mb.com.ph/issues/2007/11/15/PROV20071115108657.html
source:
BINAN, Laguna
Tragedy ended the search of brothers for the fabled Yamashita treasure in Barangay Timbao, this town.
A friend who desperately tried to save the two also lost his life in a freak accident.
Police were told that brothers Apolinario S. Samiano, 25, married, a tricycle driver, and his elder brother Bonifacio, 28, also married, a construction worker, had died inside the hole they had been digging for one month, reportedly, after they had inhaled toxic fumes.
Their friend, Percival Delgado, 42, single, a construction worker, reportedly had tried to save the two by using a rope to go down a 30-foot-deep hole, not knowing it was tied to a water pump, that when he descended, the pump also hurtled down and crashed on his head, killing him instantly.
Binan chief of police, P/Supt. Edgardo de Leon said the Samianos and Delgado were residents of Pandacan St., Sitio Kiliti, Timbao, Binan.
Police said relatives of the victims, Francisco J. Samiano and his wife, Lucita Salazar, answered questions of police in connection with the death of the three victims.
On Tuesday afternoon, Binan police received a call at about 5:45 p.m. informing them that an explosion took place at the compound of the residence of the Samiano couple where the victims live. Police probers were still trying to verify the said report.
The victims reportedly were looking for Yamashita treasure when the tragedy took place.
"Allegedly, pag may malapit na makuha ang object o ginto may lason ang mga takip or cover nito, iyon ang trap", De Leon had claimed.
General Yamashita was in command of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. When American forces, led by General Douglas MacArthur, arrived to liberate the Philippines, Yamashita reportedly hid in different places the fabled treasures he had amassed from the several places in the country, particularly in Baguio City.
Probers were still investigating the real cause of death of the victims. Police are also trying to investigate if the trios are victims of methane gas poisoning
source: http://www.mb.com.ph/issues/2007/11/15/PROV20071115108657.html
source:
Treasure hunter busted for selling fake gold
By Ernie N. Olson Jr.
BAGUIO CITY -- A treasure hunter and his two companions were arrested by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for selling a fake 32-kilogram gold bar.
The buyer became suspicious when the gold was sold to him at a discounted price of P16 million, way below its supposed value of P22 million.
NBI Regional Director Ricardo Pangan Jr. identified Tuesday the alleged swindler as Gabriel Mariano Bagtang, 67, married, a jobless resident of Purok 6, Pinsao Pilot Project who claims to be a treasure hunter.
Bagtang's two other companions, meanwhile, were found to have only acted as intermediaries and were said to be unaware that what they were selling was only a gold-plated bar.
The supposed buyer was Ferdinand Laceste Laranang, of legal age, married, a civil engineer, who lives along Mirador Hill. Laranang narrated that his cousin informed him last Friday that someone was looking for a buyer of a genuine gold bar being sold at a discounted price.
Laranang said he and the sellers executed an agreement over the gold bar Monday morning. Laranang said the sellers told him they would hand over the gold bar to him once he makes an advance payment of P5 million, and a guarantee that the balance would be paid within 24 hours.
He then issued the suspects a check for P5 million but informed them it could only be cashed at East-West Bank along Abanao Street at 2 p.m., to give him time to have the gold bar examined at the local Central Bank office.
Laranang had the genuine gold ingot sawed and scraped on its surface and it was then that it was discovered to be only gold-plated.
He said he immediately reported the incident to the NBI-Cordilleras, and Pangan formed a team to entrap the suspects while they where in the act of having the check cashed.
It was only during interrogation that Bagtang's companions reportedly realized they sold a fake gold bar. (Sun.Star Baguio/Sunnex)
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2006/02/15/treasure.hunter.busted.for.selling.fake.gold.html
BAGUIO CITY -- A treasure hunter and his two companions were arrested by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for selling a fake 32-kilogram gold bar.
The buyer became suspicious when the gold was sold to him at a discounted price of P16 million, way below its supposed value of P22 million.
NBI Regional Director Ricardo Pangan Jr. identified Tuesday the alleged swindler as Gabriel Mariano Bagtang, 67, married, a jobless resident of Purok 6, Pinsao Pilot Project who claims to be a treasure hunter.
Bagtang's two other companions, meanwhile, were found to have only acted as intermediaries and were said to be unaware that what they were selling was only a gold-plated bar.
The supposed buyer was Ferdinand Laceste Laranang, of legal age, married, a civil engineer, who lives along Mirador Hill. Laranang narrated that his cousin informed him last Friday that someone was looking for a buyer of a genuine gold bar being sold at a discounted price.
Laranang said he and the sellers executed an agreement over the gold bar Monday morning. Laranang said the sellers told him they would hand over the gold bar to him once he makes an advance payment of P5 million, and a guarantee that the balance would be paid within 24 hours.
He then issued the suspects a check for P5 million but informed them it could only be cashed at East-West Bank along Abanao Street at 2 p.m., to give him time to have the gold bar examined at the local Central Bank office.
Laranang had the genuine gold ingot sawed and scraped on its surface and it was then that it was discovered to be only gold-plated.
He said he immediately reported the incident to the NBI-Cordilleras, and Pangan formed a team to entrap the suspects while they where in the act of having the check cashed.
It was only during interrogation that Bagtang's companions reportedly realized they sold a fake gold bar. (Sun.Star Baguio/Sunnex)
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2006/02/15/treasure.hunter.busted.for.selling.fake.gold.html
Aug 18, 2008
Photo Essay
Looking down, the top level of the accumulated water in the dig before it is being pumped out in the moring. It is approx. 34 ft below the surface. The bottom floor is approx. 48 ft below the level of the ground where the photographer was standing.
The depth of water accumulated in the morning before pumping was MOL 14ft. It would take approx. 5 hours of pumping before the abanteros could go down and start the work. The 2HP submersible pump could pump out a max. capa. of 350 liter per min. with a maximum head of 35m. (115 ft). One could simply quantify the amount of water being pumped out in the morning before we could start the work.
--ooOOOoo--
The plastic buckets being lowered down in the dig. We were using a total of 4 pulleys and a manual winch to take out 70 buckets of 20 liters of sand everyday. Notice the cathedral like ceiling on top of the cavern. The shape was like a dome.
--ooOOoo--
This was one source of spring water located on the southwest corner of the dig at 40 ft below the ground level. Although crystal clear, some sort of grease compnents was highly visible on the photograph.--ooOOoo--
The part of the log recoevered at 48 ft. below surface. I kept this as a soveiner. I has it varnished and installed on a wooden stand.--ooOOoo--
This was the log laying 48 ft below the surface along east-west axis.--ooOOoo--
A handful of grease-like substance was splattered on the sand at the bottom of the dig to show the difference in color and texture on the soil located below the surface at the level of the then on-going excavation.--ooOOoo--
Different layers and structure of soil and sand located at ground zero.--ooOOoo--
Another comparative stain, color and texture of the soil below.--ooOOoo--
A pile of different soil and sand accumulating on the dumping area near the mouth of the dig.--ooOOoo--
The "grease" as recovered and packed in a plastic bag. The condition was so preserved that the color and the stickiness was so likened to the newly opened grease. If one has to consider that it stayed at the botoom of the dig for decades, it's endeed so inspiring to continue the excavation work. More than 50 buckets x 20 liters of this substance was taken out from the dig.--ooOOoo--
The shot was taken halfway below the dig looking up. It ring one could notice is the beginning of the cathedral opening of the cavern.--ooOOoo--
The :abantero" about to commence the work of the day. There was a time that the water was so muddy. This was on level 30-36 ft below surface.--ooOOoo--
This was some of the rocks found in the 1st chamber of the cave.--ooOOoo--
Another rock found in the second chamber.--ooOOoo--
The same rock in the seond chamber from another angle.--ooOOoo--
Aug 16, 2008
Deal or No Deal
(An Excerpt from MEN & EVENTS By Alito L. Malinao)
Source: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/aug/28/yehey/opinion/20070828opi6.html
Based on an earlier Supreme Court ruling, the Marcos net worth from l965 to February 1986 was estimated to be only P2.3 million. If that is so, how come that he has acquired properties that are worth billions of pesos?
On several occasions, in and outside the courts, former first lady Mrs. Imelda Romualdez Marcos has said that her husband was already a very rich man before he entered politics.
Lore or fact
This brings us back to the fabled Yamashita treasure that was supposed to be the source of Marcos’s immense wealth.
Yamashita’s gold, also referred to as the Yamashita treasure, is the name given to the loot worth tens of billions of dollars stolen in Southeast Asia by Japanese forces during World War II and hidden in caves, tunnels and underground complexes in the Philippines.
The “gold” reportedly included different kinds of valuables looted from banks, depositories, temples, churches, other commercial premises, mosques, museums and private homes. It takes its name from General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who assumed command of Japanese forces in the Philippines in 1944.
According to various accounts, the loot was initially concentrated in Singapore, from where it was later moved to the Philippines. The Japanese hoped to ship the treasure from the Philippines to Japan after the war.
Several historians have made well-documented cases that Yamashita’s gold did exist. Sterling Seagrave & Peggy Seagrave have written two books which deal with Yamashita’s Gold: The Yamato Dynasty: the Secret History of Japan’s Imperial Family (2000) and Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold (2003).
Golden Buddha
According to the Seagraves, Marcos recovered US$8 billion from one concealed tunnel known as “Teresa 2” in Rizal province. In 1996, a US Federal Court made a ruling that Marcos had stolen a cache of recovered Japanese loot, from a man named Rogelio Roxas.
According to his family, Roxas found a one-ton solid-gold Buddha and thousands of gold bars in a tunnel near Baguio in 1971. Roxas died prematurely in suspicious circumstances, leading to suggestions that he was murdered.
The US court awarded US$22 billion, against Marcos’s estate, to the heirs of Roxas. This amount was greatly reduced on appeal.
If a US federal court had acknowledged the existence of the fabled Yamashita treasure and that Marcos had acquired a part of it, although under some mysterious circumstances, then the claim that he was indeed not a pauper when he assumed the presidency in l965 gains some credibility.
Perhaps this has now emboldened the Marcos heirs to come out in the open, hoping that finally they can present their evidence in court to prove that their father was wealthy enough to acquire the properties that they are now claiming as theirs.
malinaolito@yahoo.com
Based on an earlier Supreme Court ruling, the Marcos net worth from l965 to February 1986 was estimated to be only P2.3 million. If that is so, how come that he has acquired properties that are worth billions of pesos?
On several occasions, in and outside the courts, former first lady Mrs. Imelda Romualdez Marcos has said that her husband was already a very rich man before he entered politics.
Lore or fact
This brings us back to the fabled Yamashita treasure that was supposed to be the source of Marcos’s immense wealth.
Yamashita’s gold, also referred to as the Yamashita treasure, is the name given to the loot worth tens of billions of dollars stolen in Southeast Asia by Japanese forces during World War II and hidden in caves, tunnels and underground complexes in the Philippines.
The “gold” reportedly included different kinds of valuables looted from banks, depositories, temples, churches, other commercial premises, mosques, museums and private homes. It takes its name from General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who assumed command of Japanese forces in the Philippines in 1944.
According to various accounts, the loot was initially concentrated in Singapore, from where it was later moved to the Philippines. The Japanese hoped to ship the treasure from the Philippines to Japan after the war.
Several historians have made well-documented cases that Yamashita’s gold did exist. Sterling Seagrave & Peggy Seagrave have written two books which deal with Yamashita’s Gold: The Yamato Dynasty: the Secret History of Japan’s Imperial Family (2000) and Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold (2003).
Golden Buddha
According to the Seagraves, Marcos recovered US$8 billion from one concealed tunnel known as “Teresa 2” in Rizal province. In 1996, a US Federal Court made a ruling that Marcos had stolen a cache of recovered Japanese loot, from a man named Rogelio Roxas.
According to his family, Roxas found a one-ton solid-gold Buddha and thousands of gold bars in a tunnel near Baguio in 1971. Roxas died prematurely in suspicious circumstances, leading to suggestions that he was murdered.
The US court awarded US$22 billion, against Marcos’s estate, to the heirs of Roxas. This amount was greatly reduced on appeal.
If a US federal court had acknowledged the existence of the fabled Yamashita treasure and that Marcos had acquired a part of it, although under some mysterious circumstances, then the claim that he was indeed not a pauper when he assumed the presidency in l965 gains some credibility.
Perhaps this has now emboldened the Marcos heirs to come out in the open, hoping that finally they can present their evidence in court to prove that their father was wealthy enough to acquire the properties that they are now claiming as theirs.
malinaolito@yahoo.com
Aug 15, 2008
A Story from Ming Forum - Help Us With Our Site
By the way I am kind of confused on whether this comment field here that I am typing into right now might be the entry for posting messages just like those lines up this field here at your site or would i be doing it through email? Well anyway I would now divulge about my TH experience.
My site is in the province of Bohol (sorry but for now the "municipality" would still be secret). The primary signs that we had seen on that site was a life sized statue mounted halfway at the right side of a waterfall.
The statue was oriented parallel with the waterfall which is facing north and it was holding an arrow in its right hand and pointed it downwards towards the basin at the bottom of the waterfall, its left hand is held up high with its palm facing a big protruding rock along the vertical center of the waterfall at 3/4 of its height from the bottom or basin.
The big circular rock has a diameter of approximately 6 feet and had an embossed sign of the "sun" with its rays but unfortunately we were unable to count the rays because as we were trying to clear it from an outgrowth of balite roots, it was peeled off together with the roots. The statue was soon pulverized into pieces and no gold was ever found. We then hired someone with a metal detector and was very excited when it detected the presence of metal along the wall of the waterfall right there at the basin which is only a knee deep and started digging and found out that the bottom is actually a bed of asphalt.
We soon realized that the wall of the falls is actually cement. We dug down the asphalt bed along the concrete wall reaching 15 feet but was not at its bottom yet at that depth because we were slowly digging it fearing we would hit a bomb and also because we were very busy prying out nuggets of gold-like metal embedded in the asphalt until the rains come and our waterpump was then useless.
As it was already impossible to dig further due to heavy water flow we then busied ourselves looking for some signs until we found a sign at the wall of the waterfall which according to our interpreter it meant "door" so that dig we did and soon found out that this part was also made of concrete but in its pure form or unmixed with gravel and very hard.
We tunneled through this 8 foot thick concrete wall for more than two months using 12 pound hammer and chisel until we hit another concrete wall separated by an inch thick of asphalt and found a sign engraved on a protruding concrete molded like a human head with its face flattened and inscribed by the character "7KD" which was according to our interpreter of the sign as meaning "A thick wall approximately 50 yards".
Now that meaning was very unbelievable for us during that time as who could have thought of covering something with that so costly a project as having that thickness of concrete cover so we just go along and dig hoping positively that somewhere behind the second wall was the treasure that we're looking. Excitement turned to dissapointment as we were again facing another wall after an arduous 2 months of labor against another 6 feet thick cement wall.
At this time there was already only six of us left from the original 13 but we still pushed through it until after more than 2 years and a series of walls at a distance of 34 meters thick of straight tunnel through the cement walls we cleared another wall with a crack with a jet of water gushing out from the crack at high velocity indicating high fluid pressure and thereby made all of us very excited as we had already expected earlier that the tunnel should be filled with water and thats what we did encounter at that level.
We broke the wall and suddenly was groping in the dark hurriedly crawling going outside as all the lights were blown out by the sudden gush of pressurized water. We were frightened aside from being excited because the color of the out-gushing water was red just like rust which we were also expecting as it should be due to the rotten iron casings or boxes containing some of the buried loot.
It took us almost 4 hours before going back inside the tunnel after the gush of water subsided enough for us to crawl back inside while some of us checked the color of the river and it almost reached half a kilometer until the water was clear enough to arouse suspicions from people washing clothes or bathing their carabao as it was already summertime and rain had not fallen yet during that month.
Big disappointment followed as another wall was again on our front and no cavern was yet found so that at this point we were forced to accept the meaning of the sign that it was 50 yards thick cover and therefore continued our digging operation for another 8 months until one day while the six of us were having a day off celebrating my brother's b-day, we decided to have some sideline as we were informed about an easy TH site within a spring from a cave and doing it at night to avoid being seen we proceeded with our plan.
Unfortunately my cousin drowned during that expedition and it disbanded our group as pressures from our relatives criticism was already unbearable and that ended our digging operation.
My final word is this question that I have in my mind "Would this site be a positive one or we were just had wasted our time digging this site?".
My site is in the province of Bohol (sorry but for now the "municipality" would still be secret). The primary signs that we had seen on that site was a life sized statue mounted halfway at the right side of a waterfall.
The statue was oriented parallel with the waterfall which is facing north and it was holding an arrow in its right hand and pointed it downwards towards the basin at the bottom of the waterfall, its left hand is held up high with its palm facing a big protruding rock along the vertical center of the waterfall at 3/4 of its height from the bottom or basin.
The big circular rock has a diameter of approximately 6 feet and had an embossed sign of the "sun" with its rays but unfortunately we were unable to count the rays because as we were trying to clear it from an outgrowth of balite roots, it was peeled off together with the roots. The statue was soon pulverized into pieces and no gold was ever found. We then hired someone with a metal detector and was very excited when it detected the presence of metal along the wall of the waterfall right there at the basin which is only a knee deep and started digging and found out that the bottom is actually a bed of asphalt.
We soon realized that the wall of the falls is actually cement. We dug down the asphalt bed along the concrete wall reaching 15 feet but was not at its bottom yet at that depth because we were slowly digging it fearing we would hit a bomb and also because we were very busy prying out nuggets of gold-like metal embedded in the asphalt until the rains come and our waterpump was then useless.
As it was already impossible to dig further due to heavy water flow we then busied ourselves looking for some signs until we found a sign at the wall of the waterfall which according to our interpreter it meant "door" so that dig we did and soon found out that this part was also made of concrete but in its pure form or unmixed with gravel and very hard.
We tunneled through this 8 foot thick concrete wall for more than two months using 12 pound hammer and chisel until we hit another concrete wall separated by an inch thick of asphalt and found a sign engraved on a protruding concrete molded like a human head with its face flattened and inscribed by the character "7KD" which was according to our interpreter of the sign as meaning "A thick wall approximately 50 yards".
Now that meaning was very unbelievable for us during that time as who could have thought of covering something with that so costly a project as having that thickness of concrete cover so we just go along and dig hoping positively that somewhere behind the second wall was the treasure that we're looking. Excitement turned to dissapointment as we were again facing another wall after an arduous 2 months of labor against another 6 feet thick cement wall.
At this time there was already only six of us left from the original 13 but we still pushed through it until after more than 2 years and a series of walls at a distance of 34 meters thick of straight tunnel through the cement walls we cleared another wall with a crack with a jet of water gushing out from the crack at high velocity indicating high fluid pressure and thereby made all of us very excited as we had already expected earlier that the tunnel should be filled with water and thats what we did encounter at that level.
We broke the wall and suddenly was groping in the dark hurriedly crawling going outside as all the lights were blown out by the sudden gush of pressurized water. We were frightened aside from being excited because the color of the out-gushing water was red just like rust which we were also expecting as it should be due to the rotten iron casings or boxes containing some of the buried loot.
It took us almost 4 hours before going back inside the tunnel after the gush of water subsided enough for us to crawl back inside while some of us checked the color of the river and it almost reached half a kilometer until the water was clear enough to arouse suspicions from people washing clothes or bathing their carabao as it was already summertime and rain had not fallen yet during that month.
Big disappointment followed as another wall was again on our front and no cavern was yet found so that at this point we were forced to accept the meaning of the sign that it was 50 yards thick cover and therefore continued our digging operation for another 8 months until one day while the six of us were having a day off celebrating my brother's b-day, we decided to have some sideline as we were informed about an easy TH site within a spring from a cave and doing it at night to avoid being seen we proceeded with our plan.
Unfortunately my cousin drowned during that expedition and it disbanded our group as pressures from our relatives criticism was already unbearable and that ended our digging operation.
My final word is this question that I have in my mind "Would this site be a positive one or we were just had wasted our time digging this site?".
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