Affidavit: FBI Feared Pennsylvania Would Seize Extremely Valuable Civil War-Era Gold

CBS Pittsburgh

June 24, 2021

An FBI agent applied for a federal warrant in 2018 to seize a cache of gold that he said had been “stolen during the Civil War” while en route to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia and was “now concealed in an underground cave” in northwestern Pennsylvania, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.

The newly unsealed affidavit confirms previous reporting by The Associated Press that the federal government had been looking for a legendary cache of gold at the site, which the agency had long refused to confirm. In any case, the agency said, the dig came up empty.

The AP and The Philadelphia Inquirer petitioned a federal judge to unseal the case. Federal prosecutors did not oppose the request, and the judge agreed, paving the way for Thursday’s release of documents.

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