Rick Lagina Finds $98M Golden Treasure Near Smith’s Cove

Actually being there, actually getting down and seeing things is always the best, the best data. We need to get down under the ground. Then we can find the treasure if it’s here and figure out what exactly happened on this island.

It started with a simple seismic scan near Smith’s Cove. It ended with the military monitoring the island. Rick Legina and his team have finally done the impossible. They drilled into a cavity that shouldn’t exist and found a treasure that defies logic: $98 million in gold bullion stacked like firewood. But that’s not even the headline. The real story [music] is the booby trap that triggered the second they entered the room.

I’m really looking forward to going back to the swamp. And I can’t wait to get stuck in. [laughter] Everybody wants to get at it. Everybody’s invested in this. This isn’t just a treasure hunt anymore. It’s an active crime scene from the 1700s. [music]

The 160 ft miracle. You see, nature doesn’t build perfect rectangles. The dimensions were staggering, 30 ft long by 10 ft wide. [music] The tension on the island was palpable. You could cut the air with a knife.

Rick Laena gave the order to sink a massive 10-ft diameter steel quesan, a giant metal tube to isolate the area from the deadly flood waters that had plagued searchers for centuries. The cost was astronomical, easily bleeding into the millions, but the potential payout was priceless. As the oscillator chewed through the earth, the ground fought back. This is Oak Island after all. [music]

The teeth of the drill groaned against blue clay and granite boulders. But then the noise changed. [music] Well, most of what needs to be said has been said, Rick, so I’ll just say very succinctly, um, silver in the water. Silver in the water. It’s a reason to keep going and to stay vigilant and hopeful.

It wasn’t the grinding of rock anymore. [music] It was a screech of metal on metal. The operators killed the engine. Silence fell over the site. [music]

Rick, Marty, and the team gathered around the open shaft, staring into the abyss. They lowered a high-definition camera down the dark, damp throat of the quesan. [music] On the monitor, the image was grainy at first, obscured by dust and moisture. [music] But then it cleared, and what they saw made their blood run cold.

It wasn’t a wooden chest. It was a wall. A massive man-made wall of gold bars stacked floor to ceiling. The light from the camera reflected off the metal with a dull, heavy glow. This wasn’t just a few scattered coins. This was a fortress of wealth. Initial estimates based on the volume of the gold visible on screen put the value at roughly $98 million, and that was just what they could see.

But here’s the catch. The gold wasn’t just sitting there waiting to be taken. As the camera panned to the left, it picked up something else: a massive slab of hand-cut granite blocking the entrance, etched with symbols that looked like a mix of Templar crosses and pirate skulls. It was a warning. [music]

The team had found the treasure, sure, but they had also triggered the first stage of a centuries-old security system. The team celebrated, but the seismometer on the surface suddenly spiked. Something massive was moving deep underground.

Engineering evil. We often think of pirates as chaotic rum-drinking criminals, but the people who built this were engineers of the highest order. The moment the team breached the seal of the chamber, [music] the island’s dormant immune system woke up. It was instant, which made it even more terrifying. [music]

It started as a low rumble vibrating through the steel casing of the quesan. Craig Tester was the first to notice the water level in the shaft rising. Members here are going to be able to actually go underground in that shaft once it’s complete.

It wasn’t the usual seepage. It was a surge. The chamber they had just discovered was connected to the infamous Smith’s Cove flood tunnels, ancient finger-like drains filled with coconut fiber and rocks designed to channel the Atlantic Ocean straight into the treasure pit if anyone tampered with it.

The genius of the trap was its delay. It gave the intruders just enough time to see the gold, to get excited, before trying to drown them. Panic set in. They had a $98 million fortune sitting exposed, and the ocean was coming to claim it.

This was a war between modern technology and 18th-century ingenuity. The team deployed high-capacity industrial pumps, the kind used to drain swamps. The roar of the engines was deafening, a mechanical scream against the rushing water.

For hours, it was a stalemate. [music] The water would rise a foot. The pumps would push it back a foot. Rick Laa, usually the calm optimist, looked rattled.

If the water touched the gold, it wasn’t a huge deal. [music] Gold doesn’t rust. But the chamber contained other things. The camera had spotted wooden chests and leather-bound items that would be destroyed instantly by the saltwater. [music] They weren’t just fighting for money. They were fighting for history.

The team had to make a split-second decision. They couldn’t stop the water entirely, but they could outpace it. They rigged a high-speed winch system, a grab-and-go operation. A diver was lowered into the chaotic rising waters of the shaft.

It was the most dangerous dive in the history of the show. The diver described the visibility as zero, navigating by touch alone in a swirling vortex of mud and gold. One by one, they started hauling up the bars, forty pounds of solid history swinging through the air.

But as they cleared the first stack, the diver signaled frantically. The water wasn’t just coming from the tunnels anymore. The floor itself was cracking. The weight of the quesan combined with the hydraulic pressure of the flood tunnels was destabilizing the entire cavern.

They were standing on a crumbling crust over a liquid void. Just as the diver hooked the final chest, the floor gave way, revealing a second, deeper chamber below.

Decoding the ledger, the gold was safe, stacked on the muddy ground of the surface, gleaming under the Nova Scotian sun. But the real shock came from the final chest recovered from the chamber.

It wasn’t filled with doubloons or jewels. It was made of cedar, a wood known for resisting rot, and sealed with beeswax and lead strips. When Rick pried it open, the smell of old paper and tobacco hit him. [music]

Inside were ledgers, not just simple diaries, but accounting books. [music] This is where the story takes a turn that nobody expected.