After a decade behind bars, deep-sea treasure hunter Tommy Thompson has been released from prison, leaving the whereabouts of 500 missing gold coins from a historic shipwreck shrouded in mystery. The 73-year-old explorer, who located the legendary SS Central America wreck in 1988, spent years as a fugitive before his eventual capture and imprisonment.
The SS Central America, famously known as the ‘Ship of Gold,’ met its tragic fate in 1857 during a hurricane off the coast of South Carolina. The vessel was transporting approximately 30,000 pounds of freshly minted San Francisco gold intended to establish banking reserves on the East Coast. The catastrophic sinking at a depth of 7,000 feet claimed 425 lives and significantly contributed to the financial panic of 1857.
Thompson’s remarkable discovery of the wreckage yielded thousands of gold bars and coins, with subsequent sales generating approximately $50 million in 2000. However, 161 investors who had contributed $12.7 million to fund the recovery operation filed lawsuits in 2005, alleging they had been defrauded of their promised returns. Later estimates suggested the recovered treasure might have been worth up to $400 million.
The treasure hunter’s legal troubles escalated when he vanished in 2012 to avoid court appearances. After three years as a fugitive, living under assumed names in Florida hotels while using cash payments and public transportation to evade detection, Thompson was finally apprehended in 2015.
His imprisonment stemmed from criminal contempt charges for refusing to disclose the location of the missing coins. While civil contempt sentences typically continue indefinitely until compliance with court orders, the presiding judge recently determined that Thompson would never reveal the coins’ whereabouts, leading to his release and concluding one of the most extraordinary treasure hunting sagas in American history.