A treasure hunter named Tommy Thompson located a ship that sank in 1857 called the SS Central America. The ship carried several tons of gold, and in 1987, he recovered over $1 billion worth of gold from it. He never paid back his crew or investors, and hasn't been seen in years

Did you know that a treasure hunter named Tommy Thompson located a ship that sank in 1857 called the SS Central America. The ship carried several tons of gold, and in 1987, he recovered over $1 billion worth of gold from it. He never paid back his crew or investors, and hasn’t been seen in years.

 

Two decades ago investors gave Tommy Thompson millions for a piece of buried treasure. Will they ever see their money?

 

Where is Tommy G. Thompson? Not so long ago the marine engineer from Columbus, Ohio was everywhere, raising $55 million in equity and debt financing and promoting the latest underwater technology to salvage gold from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. He once gave frequent press interviews and authorized books and TV documentaries to commemorate his recovery of a vast sunken treasure from the shipwrecked S.S. Central America–hundreds of gold Double Eagle coins, bars and ingots valued at $100 million to $400 million. Some of that loot went on national tour; an estimated $100 million was sold in heavily publicized sales and auctions.

 

Today Thompson, 54, is hard to find. His last residential address in public records: a trailer park in Fort Pierce, Fla. No one answers the phone there or at his former Columbus address. Investors who financed Thompson’s Recovery Limited Partnership haven’t seen a penny of returns, 19 years after the recovery of the treasure, and fear that Thompson left town with many millions. It’s been so long, the limited partners are dying off. Some of the surviving partners are suing to see their money again–or, at least, get an accounting.

 

“Has plaintiff’s investment in [the part-nership] been squandered or lost–or worse?” asks frustrated attorney Steven Tigges, who is representing Dispatch Publishing and former Ohio Company president Donald Fanta. Tigges has learned very little because Thompson’s attorneys are doing their best to keep everything secret. In late February they persuaded a state judge to seal the Ohio investor pleadings and dockets. (A federal judge unsealed them in May at the request of FORBES and others.)

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A treasure hunter named Tommy Thompson located a ship that sank in 1857 called the SS Central America. The ship carried several tons of gold, and in 1987, he recovered over $1 billion worth of gold from it. He never paid back his crew or investors, and hasn't been seen in years