Former agent accused the FBI of stealing gold from the Civil War (7 photos + 1 video)
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Today, 16:44
Stuart Fillmore is demanding government records on the discovery of gold hidden for over 160 years in Pennsylvania. "This conspiracy theory keeps me up at night," the retired FBI agent admits. 
In 2018, treasure hunter Dennis Parada found a cache of gold dating back to the Civil War. He asked the FBI to help him recover the treasure, but after a three-day investigation, "nothing was found."
The gold bars, worth $41 million today, were destined for the Philadelphia Mint in 1863 to help pay for the Union's massive war expenses.
But the shipment disappeared, presumably stolen by the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret Confederate society. The gold is said to have been hidden in rural Elk County.
Dennis (right) and Kem (left) Parada
Parada worked with the FBI six years ago, and they did indeed find "a large mass of something underground."
"The FBI used high-tech equipment that detected the presence of gold," Fillmore says.
He has no doubt that the agents stole the treasure: "I can't understand why the surveys show that there is gold underground, and a lot of it, but they don't find anything."
According to legend, President Abraham Lincoln sent 2 tons of gold to the Philadelphia Mint to pay Union soldiers
Fillmore worked for the bureau for nearly three decades before turning to investigating mysterious cases on his own show, Texas Outlaws. One of his latest episodes focused on Civil War gold.
In 2018, Parada used ground-penetrating radar to survey a patch of wooded land. He found evidence of a large cache. The treasure hunter turned to the FBI for help because the potential gold was government property. The research showed that the object at a depth of 3.6 m weighs about 9 tons and is consistent with gold in density.
The excavations were conducted in Dents Run
A few days later, fifty agents and construction equipment arrived at the site. However, these excavations did not yield any results. When the authorities handed over the records to the treasure hunter, they were incomplete.
A local resident claimed to have seen lights and heard agents working late into the night. Other witnesses reported armored vehicles, which only fueled the conspiracy theory.
Kem Parada, Dennis's son, said he was ordered to sit in the car during the dig so he couldn't see what the agents were doing.
The treasure hunters' attorney, Ann Weissmann, also believes the government is hiding information.
The FBI only provided a surveyor's analysis of the area, she said: "They want us to believe that after they found nothing, there was no further contact with this company."
The FBI provided low-resolution black-and-white photographs, making it impossible to tell what time of day they were taken.
Warren Getler, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, also came to the conclusion that the FBI stole the treasure under cover of night.
"What we can prove is that the FBI did conduct night excavations, despite their denials," the journalist is sure.
