The Buried Treasure of Gangster Dutch Schultz

Dutch Schultz was a notorious gangster who rose to prominence and made a fortune in bootlegging during Prohibition, then afterward continued to enrich himself with racketeering, loan sharking, and other crimes. Some estimates had him making $20 million a year from his various schemes. He is said to have killed 136 men who crossed him. But on October 23, 1935, Schultz was shot by other gangsters because the crime bosses of New Jersey had decided he was a liability. He did not die immediately, but was taken to a hospital, where police recorded his incoherent speech for a full 24 hours before he died. Most of what he said made no sense, but some took those words to heart.

The reason was because, according to Schultz's lawyer, he had stuffed cash, bonds, and diamonds into a lockbox and had buried it somewhere in the Catskill Mountains. In 1972, a treasure hunter revealed that story, and said that Schultz's dying statements were about the location of the treasure. There was also said to be a map somewhere that had been lost. In the 50 years since, treasure hunters have torn up the area where Schultz and a confederate supposdly buried the treasure. Read what we know about the lost treasure of Dutch Schultz at Mental Floss.