Treasure hunt lasting 10 years finally ends after man finds $1m in mountains
An anonymous man finds the chest filled with gold coins, jewellery and artefacts.
Monday 8 June 2020 15:33, UK
Treasure worth at least $1m (拢790,000) buried in the US wilderness 10 years ago has finally been found.
Forrest Fenn, an art and antiques dealer from Santa Fe, New Mexico, said the chest of valuables he buried somewhere in the Rocky Mountains has been claimed.
At least four people are believed to have died while searching the wilderness for the haul, while others gave up jobs and ran through their life savings.
Millionaire Mr Fenn, 89, said the lucky man, who is from the eastern US and wishes to remain anonymous, located the chest a few days ago and confirmed the find by sending him a photograph.
The dealer posted clues to the treasure's whereabouts online and in a 24-line poem that was published in his 2010 autobiography The Thrill Of The Chase.
Hundreds of thousands have hunted in vain across remote corners of the US west for the bronze chest believed to be filled with gold coins, jewellery and other valuable items.
Some have said it was all a hoax and have taken legal action.
Mr Fenn, whose aim was to encourage people to get into the wilderness, kept digging up and repacking his treasure chest, sprinkling in gold dust and adding hundreds of rare gold coins and gold nuggets, leading some to speculate its value was closer to $2m (£1,578,000).
Pre-Colombian animal figures went in, along with prehistoric mirrors of hammered gold, ancient Chinese faces carved from jade and antique jewellery with rubies and emeralds, The Guardian said.
He delivered the 19kg (42lb) chest to its hiding place in two separate trips, he told the New Mexican in 2017.
Asked how he felt now it had been found, Mr Fenn said: "I don't know, I feel halfway kind of glad, halfway kind of sad."