Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Case of the Lost Treasure


The Dutchman's lost treasure
Shortly before his death, fearing that he would be incarcerated due to Dewey's efforts, Schultz commissioned the construction of a special air-tight, waterproof safe, into which he placed $7 million in cash and bonds. Schultz and Rosencrantz then drove the safe to an undisclosed location somewhere in upstate New York and buried it. At the time of his death, the safe was still interred; as no evidence existed to indicate that either Schultz or Rosencrantz had ever revealed the location of the safe to anyone, the exact place where the safe was buried died with both men. Gangland lore held that Schultz's enemies—including Lucky Luciano—spent the remainder of their lives searching for the safe; as of 2008, the safe has never been recovered.[5]
Annually, treasure hunters meet in the Catskills to search for the safe. One such congregation was documented in the documentary film Digging for Dutch: The Search for the Lost Treasure of Dutch Schultz.